


Fixing Perceptions

by JCapasso



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 62,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24708607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: The spirits have had all their plans upended and have to take drastic measures to fix them. Measures such as sending Elena Gilbert's consciousness to inhabit the mind of Emily Bennet back in 1864. What she learns there, and affects, will have drastic consequences in the present.Warning: Mentions of slavery, but not much detail.
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	1. Prologue

“This is a disaster,” one of the witches said. 

“I know we were hoping it would fix itself, but it’s just getting worse,” another one added. 

“But what can we do? There’s so little we can affect from the other side and they still have free will and all,” a third chimed in. 

“Tell me about it,” the first scoffed. “If that stupid vampire hadn’t used that damned compulsion…”

“We know,” another rolled their eyes. “You’ve bitched about that often enough.” 

“We could just break the compulsion,” one suggested. “It would be within our power.”

“It’s too late for that now,” someone said. “It might fix things, but they’ve gone too far for it to be a definite. Whatever we do we’re only going to get one shot. We need it to be foolproof.”

“Put her in me,” one of them spoke up. 

“Do what?” all of them gaped at the one who made the offer. 

“If we send her consciousness back to live in my mind before I died, it will break the compulsion and let her see what she needs to see.” 

“How can you be sure that your past self won’t mess things up further? Tell her things that would make it worse?” 

“It can hardly get any worse, can it?” she snapped. “Believe me. I know how I thought and felt back then. It’ll work.”

One of them sighed heavily. “We’ve always trusted you before, Emily. But if you’re wrong this time…”

“I’m not. You’re right that you’ve always trusted me and I’m asking you to trust me again.” 

“This will consume your spirit, you know that,” one of them pointed out. 

“I know. It’s worth the risk. We cannot allow that curse to be broken. And perhaps her influence on me will allow some other problems to be fixed as well,” Emily told them. 

“Interfering with the timeline isn’t to be done lightly, Emily,” one of them warned. 

“I know. And my past self knew it too. She will be careful.” 

“What do you think?” one of them asked the eldest. 

“I think that it’s a gamble, but it’s the best gamble we have,” she agreed. “But we should vote.” The vote ended up fifteen to twelve in favor of Emily’s idea and the witches prepared to carry it out. 

Another witch was pulled into the council of witches to assist, and to take Emily’s place once she was gone. They couldn’t physically affect the living world, but they did have some dominion over the spirits there. There was always a cost to exercise it though and it was never done lightly. They gathered in the spirit world with Elena Gilbert in the center of the formation in the living world and Emily’s spirit knelt beside her unconscious body, placing a hand on her head and fixing the target date in her mind. 

When Emily nodded that she was ready, the other twenty-seven witches gathered around the ritual circle and began to chant. It went for almost a full hour before Emily’s spirit burst into flame and disappeared with a scream and they knew it was done. They just hoped it worked. It would be at least a century before they regained enough power to do something like this again and by then it would be too late.


	2. Chapter 2

Elena startled awake in a panic, finding herself in a small, very old-fashioned, and rather uncomfortable bed. “Hello? Where am I?” she called nervously. 

“Katherine…how did you get here,” Emily asked, settling her consciousness into her mind. 

“I’m not Katherine. I’m Elena,” she protested. “And I don’t know how I got here. Or where I am.” 

Emily tilted her head and looked at this ‘Elena’ curiously, wondering if it was a trick of Katherine’s, but quickly putting it out of her mind. If nothing else, the clothes the girl was wearing proved that. Not only had she never seen the like, but for a lady to wear trousers was scandalous. “I am Emily Bennet and you are in my mind.”

“What? How? Why? What do you want?” Elena asked fearfully, not even bothering to doubt that fact. Vampires, witches, magically sealed tombs, being trapped in someone else’s mind wasn’t that far out of the realm of possibility. 

“I want nothing from you. This wasn’t my doing. Well not the current me anyway. Only the spirits could have brought you here, and they could have only done so with my permission which means that you must be from a future where I gave it. When are you from?” 

“The year two thousand and nine. The middle of December,” Elena said nervously. “Wh-when am I now?” 

“September third eighteen sixty four,” Emily told her. 

“Why am I here?” Elena asked again. 

“I don’t know. Perhaps there is something you are supposed to learn here,” Emily told her. 

“Or something I’m supposed to tell you, maybe?” she guessed. 

“Doubtful. The spirits would never countenance upsetting the timeline like that. Perhaps if you were from not so far into the future, but there are too many consequences to changing things so far back,” Emily reasoned. 

“Maybe something about the tomb then,” Elena guessed. 

“Tomb?” Emily asked curiously. 

“It was…should I be telling you this?” Elena asked as she cut herself off. 

“There is no reason not to. I’m aware of the dangers of upsetting the timeline, so I will be sure to do what is necessary either way.” 

“Okay, well apparently sometime in eighteen sixty four, I don’t know when, there were a bunch of vampires rounded up and put into the church where it was set on fire. You created a tomb under the church and magically sealed it to save their lives. When I’m from people are trying to open it again and free them.” 

Emily nodded and thought about the matter. “But you don’t know what state they’re in? You haven’t seen them?” 

“No, it hasn’t been opened yet, but supposedly they’re all desiccated or something,” she told her. 

Emily stepped forward and reached out her hand and when Elena took it, Emily turned her wrist and checked for a pulse. “You are not a vampire.” 

“No. I’m human. My boyfriend is a vampire though. His brother is one of the ones trying to open the tomb, but just so he can get his girlfriend out.” 

“Emily!” they both heard a voice call and Elena was taken aback at how much it sounded like her own voice. 

“I’ll be back,” Emily told her before she and the room disappeared and Elena found herself seeing and experiencing everything Emily did, but she had no control over anything. “I’m here Katherine.”

“What are you doing?” Katherine asked. 

“I was simply meditating Miss Katherine,” Emily told her. 

“Well stop it and come outside with me. I’m bored,” Katherine pouted. 

“Yes, Miss Katherine,” Emily nodded and followed her outside. They sat in chairs under an umbrella that was also under a tree and sipped lemonade. “Why are we here Miss Katherine?” 

“Because the young Salvatore is still resisting my advances. His brother is to come home today and I wish to watch. Perhaps get some new ideas.” 

“Perhaps he is simply not interested,” Emily said hesitantly. 

Katherine smiled at her in a sweet way that would have sent chills down Elena’s spine if she’d had her own. “No one says no to me, Emily. You should know that.” 

“Of course, Miss Katherine,” Emily said quickly. 

Elena watched through Emily’s eyes as a soldier in uniform stepped through the trees carrying a duffel bag. That was when she saw Stefan run from the house with a cry of, “Damon!” and then she recognized him. Damon had been a soldier? 

“Heya Stef,” Damon said with a grin, pulling him into a hug and ruffling his hair. “I brought you something.” He reached down and pulled something from his bag and handed it over. 

“What is it?” Stefan asked turning it over curiously. 

“It’s called a football. There’s a game you play with it. Let me go put my stuff up and then I’ll show you,” Damon told him, grabbing his bag and heading back inside, followed by Stefan. 

Elena wondered if they were going to go in too, but apparently not. They would obviously be coming back out anyway. She was taken aback at how different they both were. They both seemed so carefree and…open. Stefan wasn’t usually as closed off as Damon, but she’d never seen either of them like this. When they came out they were running and laughing as Damon carried the football. “Wait…where did you learn this game?” she heard Stefan ask. 

“Camp outside Atlanta. One of the officers picked it up at Harvard…Catch!” Damon said as he threw the ball. 

Stefan caught it easily and then tried to avoid Damon running at him playfully. “Wait…what are the rules?” he laughed. 

That was when Katherine got up and Emily/Elena followed her. “Who needs rules?” Katherine asked with a smirk, and both men stopped playing. Elena could see Stefan’s disinterested look and Damon’s entranced one. “Mind if I join you?” Katherine asked flirtatiously. 

Stefan went over to her and said, “Uh…you could, uh…get hurt. My brother likes to play rough,” Stefan told her. 

Elena watched Katherine throw a seductive look at Damon before turning it on Stefan and running her hands down Stefan’s chest. “Somehow I think that you play rougher,” she said suggestively before taking the ball from him and running off with a laugh. 

Elena saw Damon watch her for a moment before turning to Stefan and saying, “Why are you standing there? That is a girl that clearly wants to be chased.” When Stefan didn’t make any move to do anything, Damon grinned. “If you don’t do it, I will.” Elena wanted to laugh when Damon then took off after Katherine and then Stefan followed him. Then she sobered and remembered the fate that awaited them. 

Katherine was obviously trying to use Damon to get to Stefan and that was cruel. Even Elena could see that Damon had fallen in love at first sight. And Stefan…he showed no interest at all until Damon did. What was with that? And then she played both of them? She wondered how much of the story she didn’t know and while she suspected it would be painful to watch, she still wanted to know. 

Now that Emily had been left alone, she headed back up to her room that was connected to Katherine’s and went back into meditation to talk to her visitor some more. Elena felt the room form around her and she was herself again. “Why do you act like that around Katherine?” Elena asked first. 

“I am her slave,” Emily pointed out. “Is it not like that in your future?” 

“No. Slavery was abolished in…eighteen sixty five,” Elena finished with a sigh. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Knowing that it won’t last much longer gives me hope. Though it won’t help me any, of course, but it will help others.”

“Why won’t it help you?” Elena asked worriedly. 

“Because I’m also her magical slave. My family managed to stay free and hidden with our magic until she came along and used a dark magical totem that she had apparently gotten from another witch to bind me to her that way as well,” Emily said sadly. 

“That’s horrible,” Elena gasped, wondering if she should give her hope for herself or if it would risk too much with the timeline, but she decided it couldn’t hurt. “But it won’t be forever for you either. The tomb I mentioned…Katherine is one of the vampires in it. You’ll be free.” 

Emily smiled as she sat down on the couch in her mind. “Thank you, Elena. I appreciate that more than you know.” 

“Can I ask you some questions?” Elena asked hopefully. 

“Of course. If you’re here to learn, then I would be best served by answering your questions,” Emily told her. 

“How well do you know Stefan and Damon?” she asked curiously. 

“Very well. Within the woods behind this estate is the home my family hid in. We played together secretly often as children before the prejudices of the world caught up to them and even after that I watched them regularly. They were my only friends. Even though Stefan was so much younger than Damon and I.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Where is your family now?” Elena asked, detouring a bit from her planned questions. 

“My father had no magic so was easily captured and enslaved. I never met him. Just as my daughter never met her father for the same reason. My mother and daughter are still in our home. I made my mother promise not to attempt to retaliate against Katherine for the sake of my daughter Elizabeth. She is four years old now and Katherine could easily kill them both if she tries to free me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Elena said sadly, reaching out to take Emily’s hand comfortingly. “I wish I could do something to help.”

“You have,” Emily told her squeezing her hand. “You’ve given me hope.” Elena smiled and nodded, glad that she’d done that much. “You were asking about the Salvatores?” Emily prompted. 

Elena shook off her melancholy. “Yeah. I was. What does Katherine want with them?” 

“Simply to have fun,” Emily explained. “She is easily bored and enjoys toying with people.”

“So she doesn’t care about them…well, Stefan anyway. I guess she just met Damon.”

“Katherine cares about no one but herself,” Emily said with a sigh. 

“Stefan didn’t seem to like her until Damon did,” Elena said as much as asked. 

“They have always been that way,” Emily said with a huff of a laugh. “Damon has always doted on Stefan. Shared everything with him and Stefan grew to expect it. Anything Damon has he wants. Anything Damon wants, he wants. It only got worse after the death of their mother and their father’s abuse doesn’t help. And Damon would deny Stefan nothing.” 

Elena shook her head in surprise. “They’re so much different than the Stefan and Damon I know.” 

“You know them? But I thought…oh,” Emily realized with a sigh. “She turns them doesn’t she,” she said sadly. 

“Yeah,” Elena sighed. “Stefan is my boyfriend I mentioned and Damon is trying to get Katherine out of the tomb.” 

“I see…” Emily said thoughtfully. She wondered if the spirits had sent her here to learn more about the family she had apparently joined with. “Then they haven’t changed, you know.” 

“What do you mean?” Elena asked confused. 

“Unlike humans, vampires are immutable. They don’t grow and change and evolve. Nor does becoming a vampire change their personality. It only heightens it. Their actions can change. They can put up masks and facades to hide their true selves much like any human, but deep down, they don’t change,” she explained. 

Elena blinked in surprise. That meant that everything she knew about both of them was nothing more than an act. Damon more so than Stefan. She could still see some of the Stefan she knew in this one, even from the brief time she saw him, but Damon was like a completely different person. “What’s the difference between their actions changing but their personalities not? I mean doesn’t one affect the other?” 

“Yes and no,” Emily explained. “For example, if a vampire is hurt enough, like humans, they can close off that part of themselves, but unlike humans it will still always be there. The only way to get rid of it completely is for them to turn off their humanity.” 

“So they can change how they react to the world and to people, but their true selves are still there?” Elena figured and Emily nodded. That made a little more sense. And explained so much about both of them. 

They heard a door open in the real world and Emily moved out of her mind and Elena found herself watching again as Katherine pulled Damon into the room by his suspenders. Damon said hesitantly. “I couldn’t, Miss Katherine. It wouldn’t be proper. We aren’t married.” 

“Come on, Damon. It’ll be our little secret,” she whispered in his ear as she closed the door behind him. “Don’t you want me?” she asked coyly. 

“V-very much so,” Damon breathed out as Katherine started to undress. “But…”

“No buts,” Katherine whispered, pressing a finger to his lips and kissing him and Damon sank into the kiss blissfully. “Emily,” Katherine called once she knew she had him hooked. 

“Yes, Miss Katherine?” Emily said stepping into the room. 

“Ensure that we aren’t disturbed,” Katherine told her, but gave her a hard look while motioning to one of the walls. 

“Yes, Miss Katherine,” Emily agreed and did a silent spell, but left one wall free so that Stefan would still be able to hear them. She knew that Katherine would expect her not to go far so she went and sat in the corner of the room, looking away from them. She, and thus Elena, could still see them from the corner of her eyes though, but the only other way would be to stand directly in the corner which would bother Katherine. She liked an audience, and Emily didn’t dare defy her. 

Elena tried not to watch as Katherine kissed Damon again, taking his hands and putting them around her as she let her dress fall the rest of the way to the floor. Elena could see Damon’s blush as he took her prompting. “Have you ever been with a woman before?” Katherine asked silkily. 

“N-no Miss Katherine,” Damon breathed out as he looked at her while she undid her corset, keeping his hands on her waist. 

“Then you’re in for a treat,” Katherine said sweetly as she finished removing it, leaving her top half bare to him and Damon sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. Katherine took his hands and slid them up her torso to her breasts and Damon took the hint and started playing with them. Katherine used that opportunity to run her hand over his erection, pulling a gasp from Damon, on her way to his shirt which she started to slowly unbutton. 

By the time she was sliding his shirt and suspenders off his shoulders, Damon had lost most of his hesitation and was eagerly kissing her and running his hands over every inch of her body. As she started undoing his pants Damon’s lips moved to her neck and shoulders as he slid her underwear down. Katherine stepped out of them at the same time she pushed his pants down and she pulled him into the bed with her. 

Contrary to Katherine’s expectations, Damon didn’t immediately take her, but instead pressed a line of sloppy kisses down her body and she was congratulating herself on this one. He definitely had potential with a little practice. When Damon’s lips reached her core, she used a hand in his hair and her reactions to teach him what she liked and found Damon to be a quick study. She pulled him away before she reached her peak though. “There will be more time for that later,” she breathed out, pulling him back up her body and he obediently followed. “Right now I want you to take me.” 

Damon sank into her with a breathless moan and kissed her deeply. Much as Katherine expected with a virgin, it was quick, but she wasn’t done yet. She rolled him over and straddled his lap, kissing over his neck and shoulders, careful to keep her teeth in. At least for now. That was for later. Once he was ready to go again, she lowered herself onto his length and this time dragged it out for a good long while. Once she was ready to let him have his release, she bared her fangs and bit into his neck as he spilled himself in her. 

Elena expected him to freak out, and was surprised when he didn’t. Instead as she sat up in his lap, blood dripping down her chin, Damon reached up a hand to touch her cheek gently. “What are you?” he asked in awe. 

Katherine made a motion to Emily who brought up the silencing spell on the other wall as well, before Katherine said, “I’m a vampire, but don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. I just need a little blood every now and then. You don’t mind do you?” 

“Anything you need,” Damon said breathlessly. Elena almost wondered if she compelled him, but she knew the signs well and he wasn’t showing them. He really had just given himself over to her completely of his own free will. 

Katherine leaned down and licked his neck clean before wiping her chin and licking off her fingers too. She kissed him one more time before climbing off of him and saying, “You should go before we get caught.” 

Damon nodded and quickly got dressed before slipping out the door. Elena recognized the manipulation for what it was. With Emily’s spells there was no chance of them getting caught. Emily dropped the spell as soon as Damon left, but when she got up to head back to her room, Katherine said a firm, “Stay,” so Emily sat back down. Katherine pulled a robe around her and sat at her vanity brushing her hair like she was waiting for something.


	4. Chapter 4

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, and at Katherine’s nod, Emily got up to answer it. Stefan looked right past Emily like she wasn’t there and said, “I just wanted to check on you before I go to bed, Katherine.”

“Thank you, Stefan. Why don’t you come in?” Katherine said sweetly and Stefan didn’t protest. Once he had stepped in, Emily closed the door behind him as Katherine walked slowly towards him. “It’s so sweet of you to check up on me, Stefan,” she cooed, running a hand down his chest seductively. 

“I realized that I haven’t been the best host since you arrived, and I want to change that,” Stefan told her. 

“Is that so?” Katherine asked, moving her hand back up his chest to his shoulders as the other hand joined it. “Well I have a few ideas for how you can fix it.” 

Stefan wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, giving her a moment to object before he kissed her. Stefan showed no hesitation as she undressed him and he quickly removed her robe. As they tumbled to the bed and he slid himself inside her, she gave a laughing moan. “You’ve done this before,” she said amusedly. 

“Many times,” Stefan told her kissing down her neck as he moved within her. 

“Mmm. Good,” Katherine said breathlessly as she flipped them over. There was a lot of back and forth between them before Katherine bared her fangs and bit Stefan’s neck as he came. 

Unlike Damon, Stefan tried to push her away once his brain caught up to what was happening. “What are you?” he asked fearfully. 

“Shh. You’re not afraid of me,” Katherine told him. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Stefan repeated, and Elena could definitely see the signs of compulsion there. 

“Good,” Katherine said with a slight smirk before she wiped it off her face and told him. “I’m a vampire.” She gave him the same speech she’d given Damon and since he wasn’t afraid of her due to the compulsion, he had no problems with it or with her drinking his blood. Once she had cleaned him up, she turned to Emily. “Go get me a bowl of water.” As Emily was coming back with the water, Stefan was stepping out of the room, still fixing his collar and Emily/Elena noticed Damon stop in the hallway looking sadly at the sight before he continued on his way down the stairs. 

Once she had given Katherine the water to clean herself up with, she was released and went to bed. Elena found herself in complete darkness as Emily’s eyes closed and she wondered if she could sleep like this too since she was just consciousness. She was tired, though, so she assumed that she could. If she could just get her mind to stop racing. 

The fact that Damon had been a virgin until Katherine was as surprising as the fact that Stefan hadn’t been. Damon was in his mid-twenties and Stefan was only seventeen, but that was only part of it. Given what she knew of them from her time she would have expected it to be the other way around. Especially since vampires couldn’t change their personalities. Unless these last few weeks with her had changed them both a lot before they turned. That was a possibility. Especially since Damon had surrendered to her so completely. Could she really do that much damage to him in just a few weeks?

Over time Elena seethed, both at the way that Katherine treated Emily and the way that she was toying with both Damon and Stefan. Elena could see the pain in Damon’s eyes, though he never said a word. Not that she knew of anyway. Stefan didn’t seem to care much though. Katherine didn’t always make Emily stay while she was sleeping with them, but she did often enough, including the night almost a week later that Damon told her that he loved her and wanted to be with her forever. A few nights after that, Emily had been in her small room off Katherine’s with the door open of course in case she was needed, when they heard Katherine say, “Mr. Salvatore, spying on a lady is a sign of very poor manners.” 

Both Elena and Emily knew that she had left her door open purposely just for this reason. Damon stepped in making apologies and Katherine quickly reeled him in with a lie about her corset strings. Elena usually tried not to pay attention when they were together but she couldn’t deny how much she liked how Damon looked in his uniform. “Will you miss me while off defending the south?” Katherine asked in a whisper, leaning back against him. 

“I shall,” Damon breathed out, lost in her presence. 

“Then I hope you will hurry back,” Katherine told him, clearly unhappy about him leaving. “I fear I will be lonely with you away.” 

“I should think Stefan would be company enough,” Damon told her, and Elena could hear the hurt in his voice. It was the first time he had ever brought the subject up which told them all that he was tiring of it. 

Katherine turned in his arms and reached a hand to his cheek. “Is it so wrong of me to want you both?” 

“You can want whatever you wish,” Damon whispered. “All I want is your happiness.” 

“Promise me that you will return quickly,” she asked. 

“I promise,” Damon told her sincerely, kissing her gently before leaving. He hadn’t been gone long when Stefan came in. 

Elena was surprised when Damon returned the next morning. Apparently he’d decided not to go after all. He’d deserted. For Katherine. Who was just playing with his heart all along. Elena never wanted anything more than to rip her heart out in return. She didn’t even notice how drawn she was to this Damon. Far more than Stefan who was far more selfish and even borderline cruel to his brother than she would ever have imagined. 

Elena had been expecting it when they got word that the townsfolk were getting suspicious and were going to round up all the vampires. She was shocked when Stefan wanted to tell their father about Katherine to get his help protecting her. Was he really that naïve or was he trying to get her killed? Neither Stefan nor Damon noticed Emily nearby when they had that conversation and Emily had no choice but to warn Katherine or risk her magic and her life. Katherine hadn’t been happy, but had been almost sickly sweet when convincing Stefan that it was a bad idea. That night she had given Damon more time to reward him for standing up for her. 

When the first founder’s day ball rolled around, Katherine chose Stefan to go with after toying with them for days. Since she didn’t make her decision until the day before the ball, Damon was stuck going alone and watching Stefan and Katherine all night. Emily, along with the rest of the servants, as Elena considered them, hating the idea of calling them slaves, stayed at the outskirts, just stepping in when they were needed, so she got a good look at the hurt in Damon’s eyes and the satisfaction in Stefan’s the entire night. 

After the ball, Emily hurried to Katherine’s room to get everything ready for her to go to bed before returning to her own room as Damon slipped inside to wait for Katherine. Elena couldn’t hear much of Stefan’s speech to Katherine outside her door, but caught enough of it to get the gist and that was before Damon mentioned it. As Katherine stepped into the room, Damon pulled her into a kiss, but she pushed him away. “What are you doing here?” she asked irritably. 

“I told you I would come,” Damon said confused. 

“Well I’m tired. You should go,” Katherine told him.

“Did my little brother’s confession overwhelm you?” Damon asked amusedly kissing her hand. 

Katherine jerked her hand away from him. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop,” she snapped. 

“Is my love not enough?” Damon asked, voice laced with pain. Katherine didn’t respond to that question and just compelled him to go away. 

The next night, she brought Damon to her room with her and after they made love, Damon said, “I love you, Katherine. Let me love you forever.” 

“You couldn’t even handle the sight of the blood when I was showing you how to feed. I saw the horror on your face when I killed those men,” she said sweetly with just a hint of challenge in her voice. Just enough to spur Damon on. 

“I’ll get used to it,” he promised. “Please Katherine. Turn me. Feed me your blood.” 

Katherine smirked as she grabbed her hair pin from her night table and dragged it across her neck. “I’ll not feed you, Damon. If you want it, then take it. It is your choice to make,” she told him. 

“Do not tell my brother?” Damon asked hopefully and Katherine agreed. 

Even without knowing the future, Elena knew that Katherine wasn’t going to keep that promise. Damon was asking her for monogamy and she would never accept that. Elena wasn’t surprised at all when Damon leaned down to drink from her neck, fully believing her promise. When he left shortly afterwards, Stefan came in. The first thing Katherine did was compel him to drink some of her blood too. Stefan’s clothes were still in the process of coming off when Katherine took a long drink from him before collapsing. “Vervain,” she choked out, looking at Stefan in betrayal.


	5. Chapter 5

Emily immediately went and hid as Guiseppe Salvatore, another person Elena despised with a passion, burst into the room. Elena was surprised and appalled that Stefan didn’t even fight. That he actually did go get the sheriff like he was told. No sooner than they left, Damon burst into Emily’s room. “Emily, are you here?” he asked frantically. “Please be here.” 

Emily stepped out of the hidden closet. “Damon,” she said, keeping her distance in case he was going to take her in too. 

“Emily…please…you have to do something. Protect Katherine somehow. I’ll do anything. Please.” 

Emily considered it for a moment. She knew that she had to do it to preserve the timeline, but she wanted something from him too. “Protect my daughter. And all of her children and theirs.”

“Absolutely,” Damon promised. “No harm will come to any of your descendants as long as I live. You have my word.” 

“Then I will do what I can, but I can’t make any promises,” she told him. She knew that he wanted her back now, but with the only method she knew, and the one that she had to use, it would be almost a century and half before he would be able to see her again, so she didn’t want to get his hopes up. 

“Thank you, Emily,” Damon said gratefully, kissing her hand. “Thank you.” 

Emily hid again when Stefan burst in. “Damon. I have a plan to save her, but I need your help.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Damon told him and Stefan left. “Follow us Emily, but don’t worry about us. If we fail, you get Katherine if you can,” he whispered to the seemingly empty room.

Emily followed as they stopped the coach and got Katherine out and Elena would have cried out if she could have when she saw them both shot, and burned in anger when she realized that it was their own father that killed them. Emily didn’t get a chance to get to Katherine though because the second Stefan and Damon were down, the place was swarmed. Elena had told her that Katherine was in the tomb anyway though. 

Emily took Damon and Stefan to a secluded home by the lake that Katherine had set up as a safe house in case it was needed and got ready to do the spell to create and seal the tomb. No sooner than it was done, she was surprised to see Katherine standing there. “Thank you for saving my toys, Emily,” she said with a smirk. “But this is the last you will see of me.”

“How…”

“Did I escape?” Katherine asked. “I always have a backup plan. Here are my final instructions for you. You will make sure that at least one of them thinks that I’m in the tomb and give them the way to open it when the time comes. You will also make them daylight rings. Can’t have them getting caught and killed before they can get in there can we?” 

“Yes, Miss Katherine,” Emily agreed. 

“Excellent. Now I’m going to disappear and you’re going to keep my secret. Don’t make me come back here and remind you where your loyalties lie,” Katherine said before she sped off. 

Once she was gone, Emily sighed sadly and went to check on Stefan and Damon, seeing that they were still out, she went into meditation to talk to Elena as she did often in the last three weeks since she’d arrived. “I’m guessing you didn’t know that she wasn’t in the tomb?” Emily asked her. 

“No. I didn’t know,” Elena said with a sigh. “Damon is going to be devastated.” 

“I have a confession to make,” Emily told her. 

“What’s that?” Elena asked. 

“I may have planted a suggestion to stake all the vampires first before the church was set on fire. They’re all in the tomb, but they’re dead,” Emily told her. 

Elena grinned. “That’s one way to preserve the timeline. Since we hadn’t opened it yet and didn’t know that, we don’t know if you did the same thing last time too.” 

“That was my thinking exactly,” Emily said with a smile. 

“But you have to tell Damon and Stefan how to open the tomb anyway once they wake up,” Elena realized. 

“I have to tell at least one of them, yes. But she didn’t say when,” Emily pointed out. 

“You’re going to wait? How long?” Elena asked. 

“At least until they’ve completed the transformation,” Emily said. “I refuse to give them any incentive to make that choice.”

“You’re not worried about the timeline if they don’t?” Elena asked. 

“No. Because I never would have done that anyway. There’s no risk if I take the same actions that I took before,” she told her. “Obviously they’re going to do it anyway, but it won’t be because of me.

“You don’t want them to turn,” Elena realized. “Is it because you hate vampires or…” 

“No. It’s because of who they are. It won’t be a good life for them. You heard Katherine. Damon may be a soldier, but the idea of meaningless death…Damon can’t take it. It will destroy him. And he just…he feels things so deeply already. So much more than most people. It wouldn’t be so bad for him if he weren’t alone, but with Katherine gone…” She sighed. “And then there’s Stefan. He has a good heart for the most part, but with his impulse control issues…I don’t even want to think about how they’ll manifest once they’re enhanced. Just…tell me they’re okay?” Emily asked her hopefully. “When you come from, are they okay?” 

Elena had told her a little bit about them, but they had mostly avoided the subject since Emily didn’t want to know too much about the future. If she was asking though, Elena couldn’t not tell her. Especially with her so worried. “They’re okay. Mostly.” She clearly wanted more information though. “The Damon I know is a borderline psychopath. He hurts and kills people for little to no reason and pretends to have no remorse, but sometimes…I can see a hint of something deeper. Stefan…he’s a little better. He drinks animal blood instead of human. He’s implied that he has issues when he drinks human blood and has hinted at some dark times, but I don’t have any details. He’s very…broody I guess would be a good word. Like he’s carrying the weight of the world. He and Damon don’t get along at all. Supposedly Damon promised him an eternity of misery or something like that.”

Emily sighed sadly. “Exactly as I feared. I know you’re with Stefan, Elena, but do me a favor and help Damon too. Try to fix their relationship if you can, but save Damon from himself. You may not see it, but he is the most loyal and caring person you’ll ever know. Trust is everything to him. If you give him your trust he won’t break but if you break his…”

“Oh god,” Elena said sadly, putting her head in her hands. 

“What?” Emily asked worriedly. 

“Just before I came here…I did just that. I broke his trust. Betrayed him.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re here then,” Emily suggested. “To see how wrong you were and fix it.”

“Maybe,” Elena sighed sadly. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” 

“Tell me what happened. Maybe I can help,” Emily suggested. 

“He wanted to open the tomb to get Katherine. Stefan said it was a bad idea. He said that Katherine compelled him to love her but he never did. Of course, now I know that was a lie. But I believed Stefan. He decided that the best way to stop it was to pretend to work with Damon so we would know his plan and could thwart it. Damon…he didn’t trust Stefan but he came to me. He asked me if he could trust him. Looked me in the eye and practically begged for the truth and I lied to him. Stefan and I went behind his back and were about to destroy your grimoire so he couldn’t do it when he caught us.” 

“I’m guessing that didn’t go well,” Emily said with a wince. 

“No. He said that he’d expected it from Stefan but he thought he could trust me. He was so hurt. Then he forced his blood down my throat and threatened to kill me and turn me if Stefan didn’t give him the book.” 

“I’m a little surprised that he didn’t do it anyway,” Emily admitted. 

“You are? I thought you said Damon was a good guy,” Elena asked. 

“I did. And he is. But I also said that he feels things deeper than most and that’s as a human. Being a vampire enhances your emotions by a lot. He lets them consume him even now. He hates with just as much intensity as he loves and if he was as desensitized to killing as you say…”

“No, I get it,” Elena said with a sigh. “I can’t even say I wouldn’t have deserved it. Not now. Knowing what I do now.” 

“Then tell him that. That’s the only way to fix this. If you want to, that is, and I hope you do. You will have to bare your soul and beg forgiveness and then prove to him that he can trust you. A big gesture wouldn’t go amiss. Something like allowing him to compel the truth from you. I’m guessing with a vampire boyfriend you wear vervain so it will mean a lot to him.” 

Elena winced and took a deep breath as she considered it. “Yeah. Okay. Especially since he knows that being compelled is one of my biggest fears.” 

“There you go then. This is fixable. And now that you know that no harm can be done by opening the tomb, actually helping him will go a long way,” Emily told her. They heard sounds from outside and Emily pulled from her mind to go check on the brothers as they woke up and explain what was happening to them.


	6. Chapter 6

Emily went out and helped them Damon sit up and gave him some water. Before she could say anything, Damon asked, “Where’s Katherine?” 

“I’m sorry, Damon. I couldn’t get her out,” Emily told him sadly. It wasn’t a lie and she would tell him the rest later. Once it was too late. 

“No!” Damon cried, pushing her away. “No,” he shook his head in denial, as he got up and ran off. Emily sighed sadly, but turned her attention to Stefan who had yet to wake. Damon returned before Stefan woke up, stripped out of his blood soaked shirt and threw it out to the lake before plopping on the bank in a daze. 

Stefan woke up not long after that. “What’s happening?” Stefan chose that moment to ask. “Why do I feel…so strange?” 

“Because Katherine fed you her blood before she died,” Emily told him. “You’re becoming a vampire.”

“No,” Stefan said. “No, I…I would remember.”

“She compelled you to drink it,” Emily told him. “And to forget.”

“And Damon?” 

“No compulsion was necessary,” Emily said. “He drank from her willingly.” 

Stefan sighed and looked around, seeing Damon sitting at the edge of the lake in the quarry and went over to talk to him. “I woke up, and I didn’t know where I was. I went to the church. I watched them set fire to it. The whole church went up in flames,” Damon said hauntedly and Elena’s heart was breaking for him as she listened from the porch where Emily was standing. “They killed her, Stefan. She’s gone,” he said fighting off the tears. 

Stefan sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, knowing that his brother wanted to be alone right now so decided to go ask Emily some more questions about what was happening to him. When Damon grabbed a bucket of water and his shirt and started cleaning it, Stefan went to join him. When Damon complained about the sun hurting his eyes, Stefan told him what Emily had said about it being part of the transition. How their bodies were forcing them to feed. They had been close enough that Damon probably could have heard, but he likely wasn’t paying attention. “Well that’s not gonna happen,” Damon said firmly. 

Elena was surprised. She knew that it did and given how much Stefan didn’t want it, thought that it had to have been Damon that pushed things. “That’s your choice then?” Stefan asked. “To die instead?” 

“Isn’t it yours?” Damon asked surprised. “This was all to be with Katherine. But she’s gone. I want it over.” 

Stefan nodded and got up and walked off. When he kept walking, Elena wondered where he was going, and not for the first time wished that she could talk to Emily like this. Part of her wished that Emily would go talk to Damon too. He just looked so lost, but she knew that Damon was just trying to live the last day of his life in as much peace as he could get. He spent a lot of time looking over the lake, walked around aimlessly, touching things, almost like it would be the last time. She could see him getting weaker until finally he just sat down and stared off into space. She wondered how much longer he had. How much longer they both had. 

When Stefan returned it was well into nighttime and he wasn’t alone. Emily/Elena watched worriedly as he brought a girl over to Damon. Emily wasn’t sure if she would have been watching so closely if not for the future knowledge, but she had to know how this played out. “What are you doing? Who is that?” Damon asked weakly, blinking his eyes that didn’t want to see right. 

“I brought her for you,” Stefan told him. “She’s a gift.” He turned to the obviously compelled girl and told her to sit next to Damon. 

“What have you done, Stefan?” Damon asked appalled, and Elena felt her heart in her throat. Stefan had been the one to push it, but why? Why would he do this?

“Damon, I’ve been to see father,” Stefan said carefully. “He came at me. I didn’t know my own strength. There was blood everywhere. He was dying and the blood was just too strong…I needed it. I had to have it.” 

“You fed,” Damon said distastefully. 

“Yes. And it’s incredible. My body is exploding with power, Damon…” 

“No,” Damon groaned hanging his head and fighting tears again. “No.” 

“I can hear things from far away. I see through the darkness. I can move like it’s magic,” Stefan continued. “And the guilt. The pain…Damon I can turn it off like a switch. Katherine was right. It’s a whole other world out there, Damon.” 

If Elena could have cried she would have. Not only did Stefan feed, but he turned off his humanity. After killing his own father. Not that his father didn’t deserve it, but still. She watched as Damon dragged himself to his feet with great effort. “Katherine’s dead, Stefan,” he said as he staggered away. “There’s no world without her.” 

Stefan grabbed him. “No, you can turn that off too. You don’t have to feel that pain anymore.”

“I don’t want it,” Damon snapped, trying to push Stefan away, but Stefan didn’t budge. Elena was screaming in her mind, wishing that Emily could hear her. Timeline or no timeline if Stefan was going to do what she thought he was going to do they had to stop it. 

“You’re weak. You’ll be dead soon. You need this,” Stefan insisted. “You’ll die.” 

“No,” Damon protested. “I can’t,” he tried to turn away, but Stefan wouldn’t let him go. He motioned the girl over and kept a firm grip on Damon’s neck as he bared his fangs and bit her. 

“I won’t let you die,” Stefan said firmly. 

“No. I can’t,” Damon tried to fight him. 

“Don’t fight it. We can do this. Together,” Stefan said holding Damon’s neck tighter and forcing him toward the girl’s bleeding neck. Elena was heartbroken. The look of revulsion and fear on Damon’s face as he was forced to become a vampire against his will…the fact that it was his own brother forcing him. The brother that she’d always sworn was the good brother. The kind one. The one that she loved. How could she ever look at him again after this?

Damon went and dumped the body in the frame of the house once he was done with her, not even looking at Emily who had moved out of his way. “How do you feel?” Stefan asked him. 

“You were right. It is a whole new world,” Damon said, and Elena wondered worriedly for a moment if he turned his humanity off too, but then she saw his eyes and knew it was still there. 

“And we can explore it together,” Stefan said happily. At least as close as he could get to happy without his emotions. 

“Well you got what you wanted. You and me for all eternity. But hear this brother,” Damon said as he strolled towards him. “I will make it an eternity of misery for you,” he sneered before walking off. Neither Elena nor Emily blamed him one bit. Not after what they’d just seen. 

Emily went after Damon. She had to tell him about the tomb and that Katherine was in there and how to open it. She didn’t even want to look at Stefan right now. Damon was pissed and pinned Emily against a tree by her throat. “And you’re just now telling me this?” he asked heatedly. Part of Elena was worried, but she could feel everything that Emily could too and she knew that Damon wasn’t squeezing her throat and he didn’t even slam her against the tree very hard. It dawned on her that Stefan had ‘accidentally’ killed their father because he didn’t know his own strength, but Damon was being so careful not to hurt Emily. 

“I didn’t want it to influence your decision,” she told him, reaching into her pocket and handing him the talisman. “You can use this to open it again when the comet returns to the sky.” 

“How?” Damon asked. 

“Just place the talisman in the door when the comet is at it’s closest point,” she said. When Damon nodded and let her go, turning to walk away, she asked, “My family?” 

“Will be protected,” Damon assured her without looking back. 

Emily sighed in satisfaction before heading back to the safe house, if it could be called that to find that Stefan was already gone. She knew that she couldn’t go home. That as long as Katherine was alive, her family wouldn’t be safe around her. She started to form an idea, but she wanted to talk to Elena first. She wanted to know what she’d done last time. She knew that it was a crutch, but just by her being here, so much could have changed. A single word could have changed her mind or made her think differently about things. She had to make sure that the timeline was intact.


	7. Chapter 7

When Emily sank into her meditation and she and Elena separated, Elena broke into sobs and fell to the couch. Emily knew how she felt. She had wanted to do the same. She moved over and put and arm around her comfortingly. After a little while, Elena managed to get herself together and wiped her tears. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Emily told her. “It was difficult to watch. I am the one who is sorry. I should not have made you watch it. I was simply curious how it happened.” 

“It’s okay,” Elena told her. “I’m glad I know.”

“Can you tell me…do you know anything about my family in your time?” She had been afraid to ask before but now that her work was done and she was nearing the end, there was no harm in it. 

“I do actually. Your many times great granddaughter is actually my best friend. Her name is Bonnie and she’s awesome.” 

“So Damon kept his promise,” she sighed with relief. 

“Yeah. He did. He even admitted to Bonnie that he’d been watching over your family all along and protecting them.” She didn’t add that he’d tried to kill her after. Emily didn’t need to know that. 

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I hope he or someone else, decides to look after them in the future. The Bennett line has always been a target due to the strength of our magic and I can’t stomach the thought of it ending.” 

“I’ll do what I can to make sure that he or someone else takes care of them. If I ever end up turned, I’ll do it myself,” Elena promised.

“You want to turn?” Emily asked her. 

“I’m not planning on it,” Elena chuckled. “But since I do know vampires and Damon’s already threatened once, you never know what’s gonna happen.” She understood his threat better now. After what Stefan had done to him, doing the same to Stefan’s girlfriend would have been poetic justice in his mind. 

“It is not an easy life,” Emily warned her. “Especially when your heart is pure like yours. And Damon’s and Stefan’s.” 

“I know,” Elena admitted. 

“I have to ask…you said that you found my grimoire in the future. Where?” 

“It was in Guiseppe Salvatore’s coffin,” she told her. 

Emily sighed. That settled it. Her initial course of action was the best one. “Then I know what I have to do.”

“What?” Elena asked worriedly, not liking the look on her face. 

“Turn myself in as a witch.”

“No! You can’t! They’ll kill you!” Elena protested. 

“Guiseppe Salvatore just died. If my grimoire was in his casket, then I will be caught before he’s buried,” Emily told her. “The timeline has to be preserved.”

“Then put the grimoire there and leave,” Elena told her. 

“You don’t understand, Elena. A witch does not leave her grimoire. Not until death. And then it usually goes back to their family. Will you…”

“Yes. I’ll make sure Bonnie and her grandmother get it,” Elena promised. “But still…”

“As long as Katherine and I both live, I am bound to her. I can’t go home to my family. Anyone I get close to will be in danger if she decides she wants me back by her side. I won’t live like that, Elena.” 

Elena took a few deep breaths. She could understand that. But it didn’t make it any easier. “If it weren’t for the timeline…”

“I might try to run. Maybe not. But I can’t now,” she said. “Please don’t feel badly for telling me. You did the right thing. The consequences of changing time are catastrophic.” 

Elena pulled her into a hug which Emily returned gratefully. She hadn’t been hugged since she was forced to leave her family three years ago the last time Katherine had passed through town. “I’ll miss you,” Elena told her. 

“And I you,” Emily said with a smile. “It was nice to have a friend again. Even if it was all in my head,” she joked. 

Elena laughed through her tears. “What will happen to me when you go?” she asked worriedly, not able to say the word die. 

“You will return to your body in your time,” Emily told her. “I don’t know when, but for your sake I hope it’s before I die.” 

“Why?” Elena asked confused. 

“Because there’s no reason for both of us to feel the pain of the fire,” Emily said sadly. 

Elena sucked in a sharp breath. Burned at the stake. That’s how they killed witches. They burned them alive. Emily was going to burn. And there was a good chance that Elena would burn with her. She felt a panic attack coming on, so Emily did the only thing she could do. Pulled out of the meditation and went to get herself caught. There was no point in leaving Elena to build up her fear longer than necessary. She went into the town square at sunup with her grimoire and began casting spells until she was grabbed and her hands were tied behind her back. 

Once she was thrown in a cell, she went into her meditation again to find that Elena had managed to calm herself down. She was still terrified, but knew she couldn’t do anything about it, so she would just have to deal with it. Emily wished that there was a suicide spell, if nothing else for Elena’s sake, but one didn’t exist. It went against nature. And if she had done it without magic, her spirit wouldn’t join the others. Elena was her friend and didn’t deserve this, but she wouldn’t risk her eternal spirit to save her from it. Not to mention, her spirit had to exist to agree to this possession in the future and while it was possible that she had agreed because she got a relief from the punishment for taking her own life, she doubted it. She would never have considered the possibility if not for her passenger. With any luck, the spirits could and would take her home before then. 

“Tell me some happy stories about your life?” Elena asked hopefully. It would keep both their minds off of what was coming and remind her of the happy times before she died. 

Emily knew what she was doing and she was grateful for it. She may be putting on a good show, but she was just as scared as Elena was. More so even. She would actually be dying. Elena would just be going home. She started telling stories and didn’t stop. Some about her early friendship with the Salvatore brothers, some about her daughter and the year she got to spend with her, some about growing up with her mother. 

Many of the stories Elena had already heard over the last few weeks, but she listened anyway. She asked questions to prompt more when Emily seemed to run out of them, and even occasionally shared a few of her own. When they heard noses outside the cell she was in, Emily asked her, “Would you think less of me if I told you I was scared?” 

“No,” Elena assured her. “I’m scared too.” They reached out and clasped hands as Emily was dragged from her meditation and her cell. Elena was glad now that Emily couldn’t hear or feel her presence outside of the meditative mindscape, because now that she had nothing to distract her and they were being tied to the stake, she was falling apart. She had gotten used to being trapped in Emily’s body by now, but at the moment…with what was coming…she felt so helpless that it just made it worse.

Elena knew that Emily could get away easily if she used her magic. Being tied up didn’t change that. She could kill every person in this clearing in less than a second and be free. Elena forced that thought from her mind though. She wasn’t going to let Emily die having her only friend resent her. Even if she didn’t know that. She instead chose to think about Emily’s strength and conviction in standing her ground. Elena hadn’t told her, but she knew that this was how it happened last time. At least as far as Grams had told Bonnie. This was necessary and Emily knew it. 

That didn’t keep Elena from screaming as the flames licked at her/Emily’s skin. This time her scream was joined by Emily’s and somehow feeling like she was the one doing the physical screaming almost seemed to help a bit. It seemed to last forever and it was an agony that Elena could never have imagined and then she was waking up in some warehouse somewhere, screaming in her own body and patting herself down as though to get rid of the flames. 

It took her a long moment to realize that she wasn’t on fire. That she was home. Seeing Anna looking at her suspiciously was proof enough of that. She remembered that Anna had kidnapped her. Apparently not much time had passed. That or Stefan and Damon hadn’t been able to find her. No, Stefan. Damon wouldn’t even be looking. Not after what she’d just done to him. He probably didn’t care at all. 

Once she realized that she was home and safe…ish…she found herself bombarded by a memory. She recognized the night and saw herself talking to Damon in the road in the middle of nowhere. Behind her irritation that he’d compelled her to forget she still couldn’t help but smile. It drove home what Emily had told her about how vampires don’t change. She saw the Damon from eighteen sixty four in him that night, probably because he knew he was going to make her forget so saw no need to pretend, but that reminded her that he was still in there. He was just buried under a century and a half of pain, betrayals, and probably horrors that she knew nothing about.


	8. Chapter 8

Stefan rushed into the house, finding Damon in the living room flipping through the grimoire. “Anna took Elena,” he told Damon. 

“Yeah I got that from your six hundred voicemails,” Damon said unconcernedly, not looking up from the book. 

“Damon, all night long, every single street in town, I’ve been searching. What if your blood hasn’t passed out of her system?” 

“Well then at least you know you’ll see her again,” Damon said matter-of-factly. 

“Damon, please. What do you know? You were with Anna. You must know where she’s living. Just tell me where I can find her.” 

Damon glanced up through his lashes before saying a simple, “Nope.” When Stefan just stayed there, looking at him, Damon told him, “You can go. Really.”

Stefan wasn’t giving up so easily though. He gave a nice long speech about how he hated Damon and understood why Damon hated him and even apologized for his part in it before begging his brother for something…anything that could help. Damon closed the book and got up with a sigh, looked Stefan in the eye, and said, “I mean this sincerely. I hope. Elena. Dies,” as he walked from the room. If he happened to nudge a piece of paper with Anna’s address out from under a book as he walked by the table, so be it. That was all the help that Stefan was going to get. If he didn’t see it, that was on him. 

Elena was more than a little creeped out at the vampire who was just watching her with her feet up, not saying a word. Elena wasn’t even tied up, but she knew that trying to escape would be pointless. Anna would be able to stop her in the blink of an eye. Not being tied up was probably just for that reason. To tempt her to try it. She wasn’t sure how long she had been there before Stefan busted in. After a fight, Anna managed to escape, but Stefan didn’t go after her. Instead coming to help Elena. 

It was all Elena could do not to recoil away from him. This was the first time she’d seen him since seeing him without his humanity and forcing his brother to turn after all. It was to be expected. She would get over that. She hoped. She did need a little space though, so she called Bonnie while they drove. She noticed Stefan’s looks of incredulity as they made arrangements to open the tomb, but Elena refused to listen to his arguments against it. Once they got back to the boarding house, she suggested that he go get Bonnie and hopefully her grandmother too. He was hesitant about leaving her with Damon, but she assured him that it would be fine. Especially when she told him that they would be opening the tomb anyway. Elena wasn’t sure if it would be necessary. She planned to tell him that Katherine wasn’t there and how she knew, but figured he might want to see with his own eyes. 

Elena walked in and stopped short at the sight of Damon and everything that she’d planned to say flew out of her head. It almost felt weird seeing him in modern clothes again, and the cold look in his eyes startled her. Instead she just fiddled with her scarf, taking it off slowly as she tried to get her brain working again. “I’m gonna have to change the locks,” Damon quipped as he picked up the book protectively.“Stage a jailbreak?” 

“Stefan,” she said with a shrug. 

“Ah, brother. Ever the white night,” he joked, drumming his fingers on the table. 

“I’ve convinced Bonnie to help you,” Elena told him. 

Damon scoffed. “I doubt that.”

“I’m sorry we went after the grimoire without you last night. I was protecting the people I love, Damon, but so were you. We’re all on the same side, after the same thing.”

“Not interested,” Damon said turning to walk out.

“Yes, you are because you were willing to work with us yesterday,” Elena tried to get him not to leave. She hoped to get some measure of trust from him before telling him about the part that he would have trouble believing. She wanted to know that she could get him back without pulling out the big guns. That he would be willing to meet her halfway. 

Damon turned around and gave her a cold smirk. “Fool me once, shame on you.” 

“Okay, when we were in Atlanta, why didn’t you use your compulsion on me?” she asked. Especially now that she knew that he had compelled her before. 

He turned and walked back towards her, dropping the grimoire on the desk. “Who’s to say I didn’t?” he asked smugly. 

“You didn’t,” she said knowingly. If he had then whatever happened to her would have broken that one too. When he just smirked, she almost started to doubt it, but stopped herself. “I know you didn’t. But you could have.” She walked closer to him. “You and I…we have something…a connection…an understanding. And I know that my betrayal hurt you. Different from how it is with you and Stefan, but I’m promising you this now. I will help you get in that tomb if that’s what you want.” 

Damon considered it for a moment. He wanted to be able to trust her. More than anything. She was right about there being something between them, but he just couldn’t. “I wish I could believe you.” 

Elena sighed and did the thing she’d been dreading, but knew that she would probably have to. She reached up and took her necklace off, placing it on the table next to her. “Ask me if I’m lying now.” 

Damon looked scrutinizingly at her as he slowly ambled towards her. “You know Anna won’t stop by the way. No matter what I do,” he said as he stopped just inches from her. 

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Elena said nervously, waiting for the compulsion. She knew that Anna wouldn’t stop. She’d met Anna in the past and seen how attached she was to her mother, and she couldn’t really blame her. If it was her mother, Elena knew that she would do the same thing. 

Damon looked into her eyes for a minute before leaning down and grabbing her necklace, shaking his head. Elena wondered if he was shaking it in denial of the compulsion or at his own stupidity, not realizing that he didn’t know that himself. He slowly reached around her neck to clasp the necklace. “I didn’t compel you in Atlanta because we were having fun. I wanted it to be real,” he said gently as he smoothed her hair back down. Elena found herself lost in his eyes as the connection she mentioned flared brighter than ever. “I’m trusting you,” he almost whispered. “Don’t make me regret it.” Elena could see his adam’s apple as he swallowed nervously a few time before he turned away. 

“Before we do this, there are things you need to know,” she called after him. 

“Like what?” Damon asked suspiciously, wondering if she was turning on him already. 

“If you need to open it and see for yourself, then okay. We can do that, but Katherine isn’t in there,” she told him. 

“And how would you know that,” Damon scoffed, only the fact that she still offered to help him open it anyway keeping him from losing it. 

“Because I just spent almost a month inside Emily Bennett’s mind,” she said, knowing that he wouldn’t believe her.

“Oh please. That’s the best you could come up with?” He advanced on her menacingly. “If you think that this ridiculous story is going to stop me from going after her, then you’re stupider than you look.”

“I’m not trying to stop you, Damon. Like I said, if you need to see for yourself, let’s go,” she knew that there wasn’t much time anyway if they were going to do it. They didn’t have time for the whole story and for her to convince him. “But when we get there and she’s not there, and you see that all the vampires in the tomb are dead and not just desiccated, you owe me the benefit of the doubt and to hear me out. Deal?” 

Damon narrowed his eyes before nodding. “But I swear to god, Elena, if this is a trick…if you betray me again…”

“I won’t,” she swore, reaching out for his hand. “I give you my word,” she said seriously, just as he’d told Emily when he promised to protect her family. 

Damon didn’t let his guard down, but did go with her. There was almost a confrontation when he literally dragged her away from her friends, but she placated them with a shake of her head and an apology. Once the tomb was open, Damon turned to her and asked, “You ready?” When everyone protested, Damon yanked her to him. “You think I’m gonna go in there by myself so you can seal me in?

“Don’t you take her in there. I’ll bring the walls down,” Sheila threatened. 

“You’ll bring the walls down if I don’t,” Damon sneered. “You think I trust you?” 

“No more than I trust you,” Sheila replied. 

“Enough. Both of you,” Elena said wearily. “Look, he needs leverage. He needs to know that you’re not gonna shut the door when he gets inside. I get it.” She turned to look at him and nodded. “I’ll go.” 

Damon grabbed a torch and went inside, apparently trusting her to follow, which made her feel better and she immediately did so. He sucked in a sharp breath when he saw the first few dead, but he kept looking, not giving up hope yet, turning over every body that wasn’t face up. The more frantic he got, the less attention he paid to Elena who was more than a little creeped out with all the dead bodies. They ended up getting separated which just freaked Elena out even more and then she was face to face with Anna. 

Anna taunted Elena for a minute until Elena backed up and tripped over a body. “Mother!” she cried as she moved over there forgetting all about Elena. “No!” 

“Your boyfriend did this, you know,” Anna looked hatefully up at her. 

“His father did,” Elena argued. She’d seen it first-hand after all. 

“And Johnathon Gilbert,” Anna snapped. “I made a choice a long time ago that it would be Gilbert blood that brought her back to life, but I guess I’ll just have to settle for spilling Gilbert blood in revenge,” she snarled as she lunged and Elena screamed. 

Stefan pulled Anna off of her a moment later and sent her out, so Elena ran. Stefan followed her to the door, but didn’t come out. When Elena learned that the seal was still up and Sheila refused to bring it down, she was pissed. 

Stefan went back to find Damon while Elena argued with her. Finally Elena gave up and snapped, “Then if they can’t come out, I’ll be in there with them.” 

“Elena no!” Bonnie cried, but was too late to stop her before she was inside.


	9. Chapter 9

Elena headed deeper in to find Damon and Stefan, ignoring Anna who was crying over her mother’s body and only glared at her as she walked by. She apparently realized that attacking her again was pointless with the two Salvatores in here. When Elena got to the back cavern of the tomb, Damon was losing it. “She’s not here!” Damon screamed, throwing the bag of blood he’d brought for her at the wall and it splashed everywhere. 

“Damon!” Elena called, drawing his attention as she walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing here, Elena?” Stefan asked incredulously. 

“I told Sheila that if she wasn’t going to let you two out, then she would be locking me in here too,” Elena said before turning to Damon. “I didn’t know, Damon. I swear.” 

“What are you talking about?” Damon asked suspiciously. 

“The seal is still up. It let us in, but no vampires can get out of here,” Stefan told him, trying to figure out how to get Elena to leave. 

“But you can,” Damon realized as he looked at the only human in there. “Then go, Elena. Get out while you can.”

“No,” she shook her head. “You trusted me against your better judgement. I didn’t mean to break that trust again, but I did. I deserve this.” 

“The hell you do,” Damon snapped grabbing her arm and dragging her back out as Stefan moved to her other side and grabbed her other arm. Stefan wasn’t so sure about this. They were literally dragging her out kicking and screaming, but Damon never had been much for tact. It wasn’t like she was in danger of being trapped. Not unless Sheila and Bonnie actually closed the door anyway, but he didn’t think they would do that while Elena was in here. 

Anna saw them coming by and watched curiously, and Stefan was nice enough to tell her that they were trapped. She didn’t care much though, but she followed, just in case they did find a way out. Once they got to the doorway, Damon all but threw Elena out and told Sheila, “Close the door.” 

“Damon no!” Elena cried before rounding on Sheila. “They’re all dead!” she yelled at her. “All the vampires that were trapped in there before are dead! Just let them out! Please,” she sobbed, falling to her knees. 

“We don’t have the power,” Sheila told her regretfully. 

“I’ll do it,” Bonnie said firmly, grabbing the book and going to her grandmother. “Just show me what to do.”

“You’re not strong enough, baby,” Sheila told her. 

“You said it yourself. Many things can fuel a witches power. Help me. Or I’ll do it alone,” Bonnie said stubbornly.

Sheila sighed and moved over with her as they started chanting. Since the vampires they wanted to let out were all at the door, they only needed to keep it down for a few seconds and it didn’t matter if it went back up. Anna was gone the second she got out, and Stefan grabbed Elena in a hug. She hugged him back, but watched Damon as he went to the back of the cavern and turned his back to them, holding onto the wall for support and tried to get himself under control. 

“Jeremy’s outside. Anna knocked him out but he’s okay,” Stefan told her. Unless she grabbed him again on her way out, he didn’t say. 

“Oh my god, Jeremy!” Elena cried running for the stairs and forgetting all about Damon with Stefan hot on her heels. She got to him just as he was waking up and she made sure that he was okay. When Damon came trudging slowly out of the hole like he was in a daze, Elena went to go check on him too. She’d seen him like this before after the fire before he turned, but she hadn’t been able to do anything for him then. 

Damon turned to look at her as she walked up but she could tell he wasn’t seeing her. She hugged him tightly, not bothered when he didn’t hug her back and she rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered earnestly. After a moment Damon just pulled away from her and walked off without a word. Elena sighed sadly and let Stefan pull her into a hug before she said, “We need to get Jeremy home.” 

Damon went straight for where Anna was staying and was sitting in the corner when she came in. “You knew Katherine wasn’t in there,” he accused. 

“You wouldn’t have helped me,” she tried to defend the indefensible. 

Damon pinned her against the wall by her throat. “What do you know?” he asked spitefully. 

“I don’t know how she got away,” Anna told him. “The last time I saw her was Chicago. Nineteen eighty three. She knew where you were, Damon. She didn’t care.” Damon let her go and stumbled backwards, eyes filling with tears that he refused to let fall. “I’m sorry,” Anna said honestly. 

Damon just turned and walked out without another word, heading home to nurse his broken heart. He went upstairs to his room, grabbing an armful of full bottles of whiskey on the way, and locked the door. He heard Stefan knocking more than once when he got home, but just yelled at him to go away. He wasn’t sure what time he’d passed out, but when he woke up again, the sun was up and it was another knock on his door that woke him up. “Go. Away. Stefan,” he ground out. 

“It’s not Stefan. Can I come in, please?” he heard Elena’s voice call. 

He groaned. He really didn’t want to see her right now, but did need to hear what she had to say. He had promised after all. He got up and staggered to the door to open it. Once she came in, looking around his room curiously, she sat on the end of the bed, for lack of any other place to sit and he plopped down on it, half-sitting, leaning against the headboard. “Let me ask you something…if it had been just me inside there and not Stefan too…would you still have tried that stunt locking yourself in with us?” 

“Yes,” Elena said without hesitation. “Like I said, you trusted me. You gave me the benefit of the doubt. I told you that I wouldn’t make you regret it. I made you a promise and inadvertently or not I broke it. The least I could do was stand by your side for the consequences.” 

Damon had no idea what to say to that, refusing to admit how deeply that touched him, so he moved on. “How did you know? That she wasn’t there. That all the vampires in there were dead.”

“I told you…”

“You spent a month in Emily Bennett’s mind. Yeah. I heard. And you do realize how insane that sounds right? Even for us.” 

Elena chuckled. “I know. But it happened. She said the spirits caused it because they wanted me to learn something. I got there on September third…the day you came home on leave and stayed until she died,” Elena shuddered. “I’ll never forget the feeling of burning alive,” she said in a haunted voice. 

Damon narrowed his eyes at her. Could she really be telling the truth? “You could have learned the date I came home from Stefan’s journals.” 

“You and Emily were secret childhood friends,” Elena told him. “You used to meet in the woods behind your house since her family had a magically hidden cabin back there on the other side.”

“Stefan could have told you that,” Damon pointed out. 

“Stefan was seven when you had to stop meeting,” Elena chuckled. “You really think he remembers that?” 

“Why did we have to stop meeting then if you know everything?” Damon asked smugly. That was something that no one else knew. Not even Stefan. 

“Because your father ran across her one day when he dragged you out ‘hunting’. Your father wanted to kill or capture her, but you intervened so she could get away and your father beat you within an inch of your life for it,” Elena told him as he gaped at her, and was obviously not happy about her mentioning the beating he took. “What you don’t know is that you healed quicker than normal because she stole her mother’s grimoire and used the little magic she had at that age to cast a healing spell on you using the button she stole from your coat as a focus.” 

“Fine. I believe you,” Damon said curling his lip in distaste. “But why would ‘the spirits’” he called them mockingly, “do that? Just so you would learn that Katherine wasn’t there? What was the point?”

“I never did figure out exactly what it was they wanted me to learn,” Elena shrugged. She suspected, but she knew that telling him that she was supposed to learn to trust him and how stupid she’d been to betray him wouldn’t go over well. It would probably hurt more than it would help.


	10. Chapter 10

“So you know everything, huh?” Damon sneered. “The whole sordid affair. I’m sure I’ll be the talk of the town soon enough.”

“You think I would…no, Damon,” she shook her head. “No, I would never broadcast your business like that. I am going to tell Bonnie some of it, since it is her ancestor, but I won’t tell her anything personal about you.”

“How much exactly did you see?” Damon asked worriedly. “I mean, were you just stuck in her head with her telling you things or…”

“I saw everything she saw. Heard everything she heard. Felt everything she felt,” Elena told him. “She wanted so badly to tell you the truth about what Katherine was like. How she was playing you.”

“Then why didn’t she,” Damon snapped. “I know Katherine was her best friend, but we were friends too once. I deserved better than that from her.” 

Elena reached out and took his hand. “I know, Damon. You did deserve better. You /do/ deserve better. But Katherine wasn’t her friend. Katherine had her enslaved with dark magic. She couldn’t go against her without dying and then Katherine had promised to kill her mother and daughter too. She hated every minute of it. She wanted you to know that.” 

“Fat lot of good it does now,” Damon said, taking a long swig of whiskey as he pulled his hand away from her. 

Elena could see that it did help him though, so she kept going. “She also wanted to thank you for protecting her family for so long.”

“We had a deal. But you know that already,” Damon huffed. 

“Yes. I do. Which is how I also know that you didn’t have to honor it. Even if Katherine had been in that tomb, it wasn’t exactly what she agreed to. You could have easily considered it broken by that.” 

Damon shrugged. “She tried. That was the important part. She should have told me that Katherine wasn’t there though.”

“She couldn’t. It was Katherine’s last order to her. She told her to tell you that she was in there and give you the talisman to get in. She also told her to make daylight rings for you so that you wouldn’t get caught and killed before you could open it.” 

“Why would she care? If she wasn’t in there, what did it matter to her if we opened it or not,” Damon asked, hating the flare of hope that he felt that she had actually cared something for him. 

Elena could see that and hated having to take it away. “I’m sorry, Damon. But you deserve the truth. Even if it is long overdue. I promised Emily that much, even if I disagreed. It was all part of her game. She referred to you and Stefan as her ‘toys’ more than once. She wanted you to pine for her for a century and half and then break you when you learned that she wasn’t there. She thought it would be amusing.” Elena winced as his glass flew across the room and shattered on the wall. 

“Leave,” Damon said coldly. He didn’t want to lose it in front of her. 

“Okay,” Elena said getting up, but she walked around the bed first and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I /am/ sorry though. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you.” 

Damon just swallowed around the lump in his throat a few times, but couldn’t find words. When she squeezed his hand, he did squeeze back though. He could manage that much and he also managed to wait until she left to break down in tears. As she opened the front door, she almost walked into Stefan. “What are you doing here?” They both asked each other at the same time before Elena chuckled. “I just wanted to check on Damon and see how he was doing.” 

“You weren’t at school so I was worried,” Stefan told her. “It was nice of you to try with Damon.” 

“Yeah, we talked a little bit, but he’s really not doing well,” Elena said sadly. 

“Wait…he let you in?” Stefan asked incredulously. He’d tried all night and twice this morning before he left, but Damon either ignored him or yelled at him. 

“Yeah…why?” she asked confused. 

“No reason,” Stefan shook his head. “Are you headed to school now?” 

“Yeah,” she said, turning slightly to show off her bookbag. “I would suggest that you stick around for Damon, but I don’t think he’s much up for company, so are you coming with me?” 

“Yeah, come on,” Stefan told her, not saying that Damon hadn’t been up for company before either, but apparently he let her in. 

Elena hadn’t decided what or when to tell Stefan. She’d only really told Damon because he needed to know. Stefan seemed to be over Katherine so it didn’t matter with him. Either way, Bonnie was going to be the next to know. “Hey, I’m gonna hang out with Bonnie after school today.”

“Okay,” Stefan easily agreed. “I get you tomorrow though, I hope,” he chuckled. 

“Absolutely,” Elena said with a grin, leaning against his side as he wrapped his arm around her before they got to class in time for second period which happened to be history with Ric, who called her out a little later for whispering with Bonnie, making plans for after school. 

Elena went to Bonnie’s house, wanting to tell Sheila about it too, despite still being angry with her. Or maybe that was why. To make her feel guilty. Either way, she deserved to know too. Once she was there, Bonnie was leading her up to her room, but Elena stopped. “Actually I wanted to talk to your Grams too…if that’s okay?” she asked, turning to Sheila who nodded curtly. She had loved Elena right up until she started consorting with vampires and pulling her granddaughter into their messes, but she wasn’t going to be rude about it. 

“What’s up?” Bonnie asked worriedly. 

“This is going to sound insane, but I swear it’s true. ‘The spirits’ sent me on a little trip into Emily Bennett’s mind for the last month of her life.” 

Sheila scoffed. “Why would they do that?” 

“To show me the truth,” Elena told her. 

“If that’s true, then tell me something about her that no one else knows,” Sheila asked skeptically. 

“Her family lived in a cabin that was magically hidden on the other side of the woods from the old Salvatore estate. She had a daughter, Elizabeth, that was four when she died, but she hadn’t seen her since she was a year old which was when Emily was enslaved to Katherine.” 

Sheila looked at Bonnie scrutinizingly who held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t even /know/ half of that.” 

“Okay…I believe you,” Sheila told her. “To show you the truth about what?” 

“Damon, Stefan, and Katherine,” Elena told them. “Did you know that Damon and Emily were childhood friends?” 

“No way,” Bonnie said in shock. 

“Damon told you this,” Sheila huffed in disbelief. 

“No. Emily did. They met in the woods one day when she had snuck out of the house and they snuck out regularly to meet each other right up until they got caught and Damon risked his life to save her and almost died because of it,” Elena didn’t say that it was Damon’s father that almost killed him. She was already walking the line. “Then she used the little bit of magic she had at that age to cast a healing spell from her mother’s grimoire.”

“How old was she?” Bonnie asked. 

“Fourteen,” Elena told her. “I think. She didn’t say the exact age, but she did mention that Stefan was seven and she was around the same age as Damon who was about seven years older than Stefan, so…” 

“If you were only there for the last month of her life then how do you know that?” Sheila asked her. 

“Emily and I spent a lot of time talking. When she was meditating, she created a mindscape that allowed me to be separate from her so we could talk. When she wasn’t meditating I was more like a part of her mind. She couldn’t perceive me at all that way, but I could see, hear, and feel everything that she did.” Elena turned to Sheila and said mostly to her, but to Bonnie too, “You would be proud of her, you know. When she was caught, she walked right up to that stake with her head held high and refused to show them any fear.”

“Oh god…tell me you didn’t feel that too,” Bonnie said in horror. 

Elena shuddered as she nodded. “I did. Right up until the moment she died. I’ll never forget that feeling and I’ll probably have nightmares about it forever.” Even Sheila looked at her sympathetically for that. 

“So what else did you learn about them?” Bonnie asked, trying to change the subject. 

“I’m not going to tell any personal details,” she started and both women nodded in acceptance. “But I learned that the only ‘bad guy’ there was Katherine. Damon was a victim and Stefan was mostly a victim. I learned that Damon is better than he pretends to be and Stefan is worse than he pretends to be, but neither of them are bad guys.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Just because they weren’t then…” Bonnie tried to point out. 

“Did you know that vampires can’t change?” 

“What do you mean,” Sheila asked confused. 

“Their personalities are fixed from the moment they turn. No matter how hard they try to lock parts of themselves away, they can’t get rid of them. They can just pretend to. Emily explained all that to me.” She looked at Sheila again as she said, “And I don’t know if Bonnie told you, but Damon is the only reason either of you are alive today. He’s been watching over and protecting Emily’s descendants for the last hundred and fifty years.” 

“I didn’t tell her because A: I didn’t believe him and B: Even if he was telling the truth, he said that it was part of a deal he made.”

“Well it was true, and while yes, it was part of a deal, Emily didn’t exactly live up to her end of the bargain, so Damon was under no obligation to live up to his. Like I said, he pretends to be worse than he is.” 

“Why would he do that?” Bonnie asked. 

“Because then no one else can take advantage of him and hurt him, either because they think he doesn’t care enough to be hurt or because they’re too afraid of him to try.” Elena explained and even Sheila looked thoughtful at that. 

“What about Stefan?” Bonnie asked her. “You’ve said a lot about Damon, but not much about Stefan. Is it because of what you said about him being worse than he pretends to be?” 

“Sort of,” Elena said. “I don’t feel right telling you things that will make you think less of him.” 

“I guess I can see that. The question is do they make /you/ think less of him?” Bonnie asked as Sheila got up and went to her room now that they were getting into boyfriend talk. She had enough to think about anyway.

Elena sighed. “Yeah. They do. But I’m trying to get over it. I mean…it’s not fair for me to judge him now based on things he did a hundred and fifty years ago. He’s really trying to be better, so I should give him the benefit of the doubt right?” 

“If I promise to keep it secret and not take it out on him, will you tell me the one worst thing he did that you saw?” Bonnie asked, worried about what kind of guy Stefan really was and what it meant for Elena. 

Elena considered it for a minute. “Promise?” Bonnie nodded. “After they started to turn when Katherine died, they made a pact that they would let themselves die and not complete the transition, but Stefan went back on it. He killed their father and fed on him and then compelled a girl to follow him to Damon.” 

“He was the one who talked Damon into turning?” Bonnie asked in shock. 

“No,” Elena shook her head, wincing at the memory. “He tried but Damon still refused. He was weak and almost dead, but he still fought as hard as he could as Stefan forced the blood down his throat.” 

“Oh god,” Bonnie gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. “No wonder Damon spent so long trying to torment him.” 

“And that was only part of what Stefan did to him,” Elena told her. 

“No wonder you’re having trouble. What if you can’t get over it?” she asked worriedly. 

Elena shrugged. “Then I’ll have to break up with him, I guess. I don’t want to though.” 

“Yeah. I get that. But tell me more about what Damon was like back then since you can’t talk about Stefan,” Bonnie asked as they headed up to her room. Damon was more of an enigma anyway and Bonnie was still trying to wrap her head around the idea that he was a good guy. “Without details. I know.”

“Okay, but you can’t tell anyone this either. He wouldn’t want people to know.” When Bonnie agreed she said, “He was sweet. A little shy. Very gentlemanly.” She didn’t mention that he was a virgin until Katherine all but forced herself on him. “Emily told me once that he felt things more deeply than most people and I could see that. She said that he let his emotions consume him, and that being a vampire heightens your emotions so she was worried about him being one because of that.” 

“I can see that. I just find it hard to imagine Damon of all people being that emotional.” 

“He’s a pretty good actor, but I’ve seen hints of it even before all this,” Elena told her. 

“Like that trip to Atlanta you took with him that you don’t really talk about?” Bonnie teased. 

“And other times, yes. Especially the other night when he found out that I had lied to him and betrayed him about the tomb situation.” 

“That was when they sent you back? You think it was because of what you did?” 

“That’s the best theory Emily and I could come up with. It’s not like the spirits gave me instructions,” Elena laughed. 

“Do Damon and Stefan know about this little trip of yours?” 

“Damon does. Stefan doesn’t.” When Bonnie raised an eyebrow at her, she explained, “Damon needed to know. After what Katherine did and how hard he was taking it, plus the fact that he and Emily were friends once and she wanted me to give him a message. I haven’t decided if I’m gonna tell Stefan yet.” 

“You need to,” Bonnie told her. “If you’re serious about trying to make things work with him, then he needs to know.” 

Elena sighed. “Yeah. Okay. You’re right. I’ll tell him tomorrow.” 

The next day after school, Elena asked Stefan to take her to the ruins of his old house. She decided she wanted to do this the same way he’d told her the truth. Stefan held his questions until they got there. “Why did you want to come here?” Stefan asked curiously. 

“Because I have something crazy to tell you and this seems to be our spot for crazy,” Elena laughed as they walked towards the spot where the old house used to stand. 

“Okay,” Stefan laughed with her. “What is it?” 

“When Anna kidnapped me, I was sent on a little trip. Mentally speaking. Emily said it was ‘the spirits’ that sent me.”

“Emily? Trip?” Stefan was confused. 

“I basically lived the last month of Emily Bennett’s life in her mind,” Elena told him. 

“Seriously?” Stefan asked skeptically. “I think you just had a crazy dream, Elena.” 

“Did I?” she asked amusedly as she stopped walking. “Right here is where Damon taught you how to play football. You were standing here and he was over there. He threw you the ball and then came at you and you were annoyed because he didn’t even tell you the rules.” 

“That’s…Did Damon…” Stefan stammered. 

She took his hand and led him forward a ways, onto the cracked foundation that was left. “It was probably right about…hereish. Up a floor, where you told Katherine that you were in love with her after the founder’s ball.” 

“She compelled me…”

“Not for that she didn’t,” Elena told him. “I saw every time she compelled you which was twice. Once to not be afraid of her and once to drink her blood. She never said a word about loving her, and if she’d compelled you for that before I got here you wouldn’t have been giving her the cold shoulder right up until Damon showed interest.” 

Stefan winced at that. “You’re sure?” he asked her and she nodded. “I had no way of knowing what she did and didn’t compel me to do,” Stefan explained. “While the memories returned during the transition, any feelings that she manipulated weren’t as easy to figure out.” 

“I guess I can see that. And I can also see how your feeling would change once the compulsion to not be afraid of her broke,” she admitted. 

“So you saw…everything?” Stefan asked worriedly. “Even when we turned?” 

“If you mean when you forced the blood down Damon’s protesting throat…yeah,” Elena told him. “Everything that Emily saw, heard, and felt since that September third until her death.”

“But…they burned her…” Stefan said with wide eyes. 

“Believe me. I know,” Elena said with a shudder. “Kinda hard to forget.” 

“That’s why you’ve been having nightmares,” Stefan realized. 

“How did you…”

“Jenna mentioned it. She was worried.” 

“Right. Should have known,” Elena huffed. 

“I thought it was just from the tomb of vampire corpses. I told her it wasn’t anything to worry about. I should have asked. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like it’s anything that anyone can do anything about anyway. I mean, the normal option would be therapy, but I’m not really big on the idea of ending up in a padded room when I tell a shrink that I visited the mind of a witch from a hundred and fifty years ago that was burned at the stake,” she laughed. 

“Still…maybe talking about it will help,” Stefan told her. 

“I am talking about it,” she pointed out amusedly. “To you. To Bonnie. To Damon…sort of.” 

“Damon? He knows?” Stefan asked, a little hurt that he was the last one to know. “And what do you mean sort of?”


	12. Chapter 12

“He needed to know. Emily wanted me to give him a message, plus with as messed up as he was about Katherine…you know,” she shrugged. “And I mean sort of because I did mention it but then we got side-tracked right after and you know how Damon is. He can’t really focus on more than one thing at a time when he’s emotional.” 

“Were you able to help any? With the Katherine thing?” Stefan asked hopefully. 

“I think I made it worse actually, but hopefully better in the long run. There wasn’t really a lot of good news there,” Elena shrugged. 

“What do you mean?” 

Elena knew that he deserved to know too, even if he wasn’t still hung up on it or her, so she didn’t mind sharing. “I had to tell him that she was an unfeeling bitch who didn’t care about anyone but herself and used both of you for her own amusement. Even called you her ‘toys’. I think the part that really got him though was the fact that she intentionally left him hanging for a century and half just to break him when he learned that she wasn’t in the tomb because she thought it would be fun.”

“Oh god. No wonder he’s been drunk for days,” Stefan said with a wince. “And you thought telling him this right after he found her missing was the best idea?” 

Elena shrugged. “Would there have been any such thing as a good time for that?” she asked. “He needed to know not to go looking for her. That she didn’t care. Maybe I should have waited, but he wouldn’t have been in any better shape then. This way I just kinda…ripped off the bandaid.” 

Stefan sighed. “You’re right. I just…he doesn’t deal well with this kind of thing.”

“I know. He feels things a lot deeper than he lets on. I learned that much on my trip,” Elena said sadly. 

“Look, about what you learned about me…” 

Elena kissed him and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she told him. “That was a long time ago, Stefan. I told you that I wouldn’t hold your past against you and I mean that now just as much as I did then.” 

“So what was it like…being a passenger in someone else’s head. It doesn’t sound very pleasant,” Stefan asked her, glad to change the subject. 

Elena laughed. “You’re the first person to ask that, you know.” This was why she loved him. “It wasn’t pleasant, but it could have been worse. I hated being completely helpless with no control over what I did or said, but Emily made sure to spend as much time in meditation where I could be separate and myself as she could, so that helped. Watching people I knew and getting to know more about them was nice, though there were a lot of times I wished I could turn away.”

“Oh god. Emily was there when…me and Katherine…” 

“Yep,” Elena told him. “And when Damon and Katherine. Not to mention other things that I never really wanted to see, less of the sexual variety and more of the parts of humanity that were common in that time that I really could have done without the practical demonstration of if you know what I mean.” 

Stefan winced again. “Yeah. I do know. I never really liked that part either, even if it was normal back then.”

“I know you didn’t,” Elena told him. And neither had Damon. They had both tended to treat the slaves like they weren’t there, but neither of them were ever cruel or violent with them and even prevented their father from being so a couple times by taking the blame…and the punishment…when things happened. 

“It’s kinda weird for me that you were there for all that back then,” Stefan admitted. 

“It’s weird for me too so I get it.” They spent the next couple hours walking around the property and talking until it got dark and Stefan took her home. 

They had just started Christmas break so it was only a few days until Christmas and they were all distracted. Elena still managed to ask Stefan how Damon was doing a couple times, but hadn’t seen him herself and Stefan assured her that he was okay, so she didn’t worry too much about it and they had a nice Christmas and then New Year’s. It was about a week after New Year’s when she finally saw Damon again. She was meeting Stefan for the charity auction and went straight up to his room. “Stefan?” she called, looking around. 

“Better. Me,” Damon said with a smirk, staggering out of the bathroom in just his pants.

Elena was taken aback at his appearance. “You look…um…”

“Dashing? Gorgeous? Irresistable?” he guessed, slurring the last word as he moved closer to her. 

Elena leaned back away from him as she finished with, “Wrecked. You look wrecked.”

“No reason why,” he shrugged. “Did you know that I am one of Mystic Falls most eligible bachelors?” he struggled with the last two words again as he turned back to the mirror to shrug his shirt on. 

“How are you doing?” she asked worriedly. 

“Never better,” Damon said. “Yup, so what can I do for ya. I am a barrel of favors today. It’s my newfound purpose. How can I help people?” 

Elena was more worried than ever and wasn’t going to ask him for anything right now even if she did have something to ask for. “I’m just meeting Stefan. We’re going to the fundraiser.”

Damon was struggling with his buttons and finally gave up and turned to Elena. “Help a guy out would ya? I can’t…get this…” 

Elena resisted the urge to roll her eyes and went over to help him button up his shirt, trying to ignore how being so close to him and even helping him dress made her feel. Instead, she tried for a subject that wasn’t him. “So…I found out who my birth mother is.”

“Who cares,” Damon replied and at the hurt look on her face he clarified what he meant. “She left you. She sucks.” 

Elena got lost in Damon’s eyes for a minute before she heard footsteps and pulled herself away, leaving him only half buttoned. “Stefan,” she said relieved. “There you are.” Damon made his escape soon after, but not without a quip to Stefan about his physique and Elena looked at Stefan and said incredulously, “He’s fine?”

“He’s Damon,” Stefan said with a shrug. Elena really didn’t like how cavalierly he was taking this. She was worried about him, but she also knew that Stefan had been uncomfortable with her friendship with Damon after her little trip. Especially when Damon knew about it before he did, so she dropped it. For now. 

They got to the auction and picked a good table, sitting with Jenna, who was the only one of the three with a ticket of course. Stefan had been off getting them drinks when the disaster happened. Apparently neither of them told Damon who Elena’s birth mother was because he would never be this cruel to Elena. When Elena took off, Stefan rushed out to catch her. “He killed her? /Damon/ was the vampire that killed her?” she asked incredulously. 

“I don’t know what happened,” Stefan told her. “Alaric said that they never found the body.”

“Oh my god,” Elena tried to come to terms with it. 

“I’m so sorry. I was gonna tell you, I just wanted to know more.”

“Does he know? That she was my mother? Does he know?” 

“No. He doesn’t know about the connection to you. I thought about confronting him but he’s already so on edge…” 

Elena paced and ranted for a while longer before she got it out of her system…at least mostly, and headed back inside, only to run straight into Damon as she did. “Whoa. Easy there. Buy a ticket like everybody else,” he joked. 

“Did you enjoy that? Rubbing it in to Alaric Saltzman?”

“What?” Damon asked confused. Sure it wasn’t his finest moment, but she seemed a little more upset about it than she should have been. When Stefan came up behind him to warn Elena off he was sure of it. “Am I missing something here?” 

“Did I forget to mention earlier while we were talking…about my birth mother…the one that gave me up? Her name was Isobel.” The smile immediately dropped from Damon’s face at that, and Elena actually enjoyed the anguished look on his face this time. “Go ahead. Reminisce about how you killed her,” she snapped as she brushed by him and stormed off. 

Damon watched her go feeling even more like an ass than ever. He hadn’t known. How could he have known? The one person who actually seemed to give a crap about him and he goes and does this to her. He was more than a little distracted during his obligatory date with the mayor’s wife as he tried to think of how to fix this, but he could only think of one thing. It was the least he could do after what he did. She’d made a big gesture and offered up her worst fear to him when she screwed up so he had to do the same.


	13. Chapter 13

He went to her house and jumped in the window just as she was coming in for bed. “I’m really not in the mood, Damon,” she snapped. 

“I know. I screwed up. I’m sorry,” he told her. 

“You think sorry fixes this?” Elena asked incredulously. 

“No. It doesn’t. Which is why I brought you this,” he said handing her a stake. 

“What…” she asked gobsmacked as she took it without even thinking. 

“I would prefer that you not take a killing blow obviously, but I won’t fight you either way, so go ahead,” he said holding his arms out from his side. 

“Damon, I’m not…”

“Come on. It’s no more than I deserve,” he told her. “I won’t hold it against you if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

Elena shook her head and shoved the stake at his chest…not the pointy end, and he caught it before it fell to the floor. “You don’t just get to come in here and take a little pain and absolve yourself of what you did. It doesn’t work like that.” 

“I forgave you that easily,” he pointed out. “Easier even.”

“You killed my mother, Damon. That’s not something I can get over just like that,” she snapped. 

“I didn’t kill her,” Damon told her. 

“What do you mean?” Elena asked confused. 

“Well…technically I did, I guess, but she didn’t stay dead so it doesn’t really count.”

“Damon, I swear to god if you don’t tell me what you’re talking about…”

“I turned her,” Damon told her. “At her request. Her begging if you want to be technical. She came to me. She wanted to be a vampire and someone I used to know pointed her in my direction.” 

Elena deflated and sank onto her bed. She couldn’t really be mad at him for that. Not if she’d gone to him and asked for it. “Rubbing it in to Alaric was cruel and unnecessary.” 

“I know. But in my defense, he has been trying to kill me and I was a little drunk,” Damon pointed out.

Elena sighed and shook her head. “Don’t do that again please? At least not so publicly.”

“I’ll try,” Damon agreed. “We okay?” 

Elena huffed, but said, “Yeah. We’re okay. Just give me a day or two to process, okay?” She knew she was being more forgiving than he might deserve if she only took into account what she’d seen of him since she met him, but between what she’d learned about him in the past and even their first encounter that he’d compelled away, she couldn’t stay mad at him. Not for this. If he had actually killed her, she might be able to hold onto it for a while, but he hadn’t. 

“Sure thing,” Damon said too relieved that she didn’t hate him to argue with her request, even if he would have otherwise. Over the next few days he did his best to give her some space, but that only lasted until Stefan went missing. 

Elena ignored yet another call from Damon. She just wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, but there was a knock on the door almost as soon as he hit the button. She wasn’t nearly as surprised as she should have been to find Damon there and he came straight in, soaking wet from the storm. “You’re ignoring me,” he accused. 

“The six missed calls? Yeah, my phone died,” she said sarcastically. 

“Is Stefan here?” Damon asked, ignoring her comment. When Elena realized that he really was missing and that Anna had turned a bunch of vampires to help her get revenge on Stefan for what happened to her mother, she nearly went through the roof and immediately went with Damon to try and get him back, but he made her wait in the car. 

When she saw him coming back alone, she rushed out to meet him with the umbrella. If the situation had been less serious she might have laughed at how much he looked like a drowned rat. “What happened? Where is he?” she asked frantically. 

“They have him. I can’t get in,” Damon told her, not much better off. 

“Why not?” she asked. 

“Because the woman who owns the house is compelled to not let me in,” Damon told her. 

“I can get in,” Elena said, starting to head in that direction. 

Damon grabbed both her arms and pushed her back. “You’re not going in there,” he said firmly. 

“I’m going,” she argued, trying to push off his grip. 

“You’re /not/ going in there,” he said more firmly. There was no way he was risking her life like that. 

“We’ve got to do something.”

“I know.”

“We can’t let them hurt him. We’ve got to get him out of there.” 

“I know,” Damon said again before taking her face in his hands and making her look at him. “Elena! I know. But I don’t know how to get him out.” 

“I have an idea,” Elena said. “Come on,” she jumped back in the car and explained her idea while they drove. 

After a bit of male posturing between Damon and Ric, Elena stepped out and asked for his help. They tried to convince him but he just kept refusing. Right up until Damon told him that the person in charge could help him find Isobel and he finally agreed. Then came the argument about her going along. It took some doing, but the best Damon would agree to was letting her drive the getaway car. “You can’t stop me. It’s Stefan we’re talking about here. You don’t understand.”

“Oh I understand,” Damon said rolling his eyes. “I understand. He’s the reason you live. His love lifts you up where you belong. I get it,” he said mockingly. 

“Can you just not joke around for like two seconds?” she snapped. 

That was it for Damon’s temper. “I can’t protect you, Elena. I don’t know how many vampires there are in there,” he said harshly before snapping his fingers. “That’s how long it takes you to get your head ripped off. I need to be able to get in and get out. I can’t be distracted with your safety.” He caught her eyes and said as seriously as he could muster, “Or this will turn into a blood bath that /none/ of us walk away from. Including Stefan.” Elena looked down miserably and Damon felt bad. “I know. I get it,” he said sympathetically. 

“Look if we’re gonna go, let’s go,” Ric said grabbing his gear, suddenly realizing that there was more to Damon Salvatore than met the eye. If he didn’t get him killed in this, he might have to stop trying to kill him. 

Once they got there, Elena waited in the car for as long as she could manage, but couldn’t take it anymore so she got out and went to help. She crept down to the cellar and was about to take out the vampire guard, but Damon slipped out of the shadows and got him first. She’d had no idea he was even there, and she suddenly realized how bad of an idea this was. If he had been any other vampire she would have been dead in that fingersnap amount of time. 

“Are you insane?” he asked incredulously, but let her come along for the rest. It was better than her making a run for it alone across the open yard. At least while she was next to him he had a snowball’s chance in hell of protecting her. He was halfway glad that she’d come when the ropes Stefan was hung with were coated with vervain and Damon told her to get him down. He could have done it himself, it just would have hurt like a bitch and since she was here anyway there was no point. 

Once they had him loose, Damon went to distract the rest of the house while Elena tried to get Stefan to the car. Unfortunately, they were attacked before they could get there and Stefan was almost killed. The only option had been for Elena to feed him some of her blood to heal him up. Unfortunately, that led to Stefan falling off the wagon, not that Elena knew that for a while. Damon kept trying to help, but when it started causing too many problems he knew he needed backup so went to find Elena while she was getting ready for the Miss Mystic Pageant. 

Elena dismissed the way that Damon was making it seem like he didn’t care about anything but his inconvenience. She could see through that easily now and could tell that he was worried, which worried her. When he told her that Stefan was still drinking human blood, her first instinct was denial, but she knew that he wouldn’t lie about that. Her comment about it not being a good time for Stefan to fly off the handle told her that this wasn’t the first time he’d had this issue and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Especially when he told her what Stefan was like on human blood. Like he had a lot of experience with it. 

Elena’s guilt rant was interrupted by the arrival of Stefan at which point Damon disappeared rather than deal with the coming drama and Elena rounded on Stefan which turned into a big fight before they were interrupted when it was time to start the pageant. She couldn’t help but worry that he wouldn’t be waiting for her down there though, and kept trying to see from the top of the staircase, but she couldn’t get a good view. It wasn’t until her name was called and she was heading down that she realized that, no. He actually wasn’t there. 

Just when she thought she was about to end up completely mortified, Damon slid into place at the bottom of the stairs and she gave him a grateful look. As she took his hand, she asked, “Where’s Stefan?” 

“I don’t know,” he whispered back before escorting her out. 

Even if Elena didn’t already know how good of an actor he was, his perfect grace in this uncomfortable and worrying moment would have clued her in as they took their places for the dance. “What are we gonna do?” she asked as she curtsied to him. 

“Right now we just have to get through this,” he told her with a tight smile of solidarity. 

As the dance started, Elena had no idea why Katherine had said that Stefan was a better dancer. Unless Damon had learned later. He hadn’t danced at that ball so she couldn’t really say. She did know that he was a better dancer now, and found herself completely lost in the moment and hated how completely at home she felt in his arms. It wasn’t until it was over that her worry for Stefan flared up again and she and Damon split up to look for him. 

Finding him feeding on Amber, and nearly killing her, was the biggest dose of cold water in the world. She’d tried to put his past behind her, but this wasn’t the past. It was the present. And it was proof that no matter how deeply he buried his true self it was still there and would always be there. Just as Damon’s would be, she realized as he tried to gently coax Stefan down from the edge without spooking him. The love and concern he had for his brother had never been more evident than that moment, but Stefan attacked him when he got too close. He was just about to go for Amber again, but Bonnie had apparently followed them and put Stefan down until he took off into the woods like a frightened animal and Damon cursed. 

Elena could see him fighting with himself on whether to go after his brother or take care of Amber, but he decided on taking care of Amber. Unfortunately since Stefan had already compelled her, he couldn’t compel her again to forget which meant she needed an ambulance and Damon had to call the sheriff. At least the girls agreed to lie about it being Stefan and said that they didn’t see who it was.


	14. Chapter 14

As Bonnie and Elena walked back to the party, Bonnie asked her, “Still think you can put the past behind you?” 

“No,” Elena shook her head. “I can’t. Because it’s not just the past anymore. This is who he is and that’s never going to change no matter how deep he tries to bury it.” 

Bonnie nodded sadly. “I know. And I see what you mean now about that. And Damon too. He may act like an ass more often than not, but what I just saw was the exact opposite.” 

“I know,” Elena sighed. “I’ve been able to see through his act a lot easier since I got back, and if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been able to see through Stefan’s too. I just tried to ignore it, and judge him on his actions instead.”

“But you don’t judge Damon for his actions,” Bonnie pointed out. “You treat him like you would have back then.” 

“That’s different,” she argued. 

“Why?” Bonnie asked pointedly. 

“Because…Because…” Elena scrambled for a reason before finding one, weak though it was. “Because treating him like that makes him more likely to act like that, but the last thing I want is for Stefan to act like his old self.” 

“Because you like Damon more,” Bonnie said with a smirk. 

“I love Stefan,” Elena protested. 

”Okay, then you /love/ Damon more,” Bonnie chuckled.

“No…I…”

“Oh come on, Elena. Everyone who watched you two dance just now knows it. You might as well have had a neon sign over your head. Just as it’s painfully obvious he feels the same for you.” 

“Oh please,” Elena rolled her eyes. “He’s been pining for his ex for a century and a half. He’s not gonna get over her and move on in just a few weeks.” 

“An ex that he found out was never what he thought she was and was lying to him all along. That’s not that hard to get over,” Bonnie pointed out amusedly. 

“Either way, I’m not Katherine. I’m at least going to end it with Stefan before I go for his brother,” Elena told her. 

“I’m not arguing with that in the slightest,” Bonnie told her. “Just trying to point out that it’s what you need to do to begin with.”

“I get it, okay. And I will. As soon as he’s in his right mind again,” Elena promised. 

The rest of the party fell rather flat and Damon disappeared not long after the incident. He’d come back in for a little bit and mingled around, probably to deflect suspicion before he left, probably to find Stefan. It didn’t even dawn on Elena that she was so accurately predicting his actions and the reasons behind them. When she finally managed to be released after Caroline was crowned, she left with a sense of relief and immediately called Damon on her way over there. “Did you find him?” 

“Sort of,” Damon admitted. 

“Sort of?” Elena asked, wanting more information than that. 

“He’s here. Up in his room throwing a fit. I just can’t get close,” Damon told her. 

“I can,” she said firmly. “If you have one of those tranquilizer things we can get him locked up and dried out.” 

“No, Elena. He could hurt you,” Damon protested. 

“Then you’ll just have to be close enough to intervene then won’t you,” Elena said, trying to keep a light tone as much to calm her own nerves as his. 

Damon sighed, feeling like he was in a position where he had to choose between Elena and his brother and neither choice was a good one. “Okay. But if he hurts you…” 

“I’m sure you’ll punish him appropriately without killing him,” Elena chuckled tightly. 

“Yeah. That,” Damon huffed a tense laugh as he heard a car and glanced out the window. “Apparently my agreement with this idiotic plan was superfluous?” 

“Pretty much,” Elena joked as she headed in the door that he was already holding open as she hung up the phone. Damon rolled his eyes before palming her the dart as she headed upstairs and he followed a little bit behind, being as silent as possible to keep Stefan from knowing he was there and he waited just around the corner. When Stefan slammed her against the wall, he almost intervened, but when he peeked around the corner she waved him off right before she jabbed the dart into his back. 

Once Stefan hit the floor, Damon took him downstairs and stuffed him in the cell, locking it behind him. “There’s no guarantee this is gonna work,” Damon told her. 

“It has to,” she sighed. 

Damon nodded and started to head upstairs before realizing that she wasn’t following. “You coming?” 

“I’m gonna stay here,” Elena told him as she slid down the wall to sit. 

Damon turned back and sat across from her as their knees bumped together. “You okay?” 

Elena nodded. “Yeah. I am. Just got a lot on my mind.” 

“You know, he’s not gonna wake up for at least a couple hours even with a belly full of the good stuff,” Damon told her. 

Elena huffed but nodded, starting to get up. Damon was already on his feet and reached a hand down to help her and she took it with a smile. Once they were upstairs, Damon poured himself a whiskey and offered her one. She waffled for a minute before shrugging. “Yeah, okay,” she said as she took it. 

“I was being polite. I thought you hated whiskey,” he chuckled. 

“After the night I’ve had, I think I’ve earned it,” she said wryly. 

“You’re not wrong there,” Damon said clinking his glass to hers as they both took a drink. “You wanna talk about all those things on your mind?” he asked compassionately. 

That was the last straw for Elena who quickly closed the distance between them and hugged him around the middle. Damon was taken aback for a second before wrapping one arm around her while the other reached for the table to set down his drink before joining the first. He leaned his head on hers as he felt her tears on his chest. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay,” he said gently as he rubbed her back. 

It was a few minutes before she pulled back a little bit and wiped her tears, looking up at him. “I’m sorry. It just all kinda hit me at once, you know,” she said sheepishly. 

“It’s okay, Elena,” he whispered, reaching a hand to her cheek and using his thumb to catch what she missed. “I get it.” 

She knew that he really did get it and she smiled, getting lost in his eyes again and he got just as lost in hers, not even realizing that they were moving closer together. It wasn’t until she felt his breath on her lips that she realized and pulled away with a breathless, “We can’t.” 

“Right. Sorry,” Damon breathed out taking a few steps back and holding up his hands placatingly. “Brother’s girl and all. I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s not that, Damon,” Elena assured him. “It’s just…I’m not Katherine.” 

Damon snorted derisively. “Believe me, Elena. I’m well aware of that, and if you think…”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” she cut him off. She knew that he didn’t see her as a replacement or something and that her looking like Katherine had nothing to do with his feelings. “I just meant…there’s not going to be any overlap here. I will /not/ play around with you both. Until he and I are officially and completely separated, nothing will happen with you and I.”

“So…there is a you and I then?” Damon asked confused. 

“Nothing includes this conversation,” Elena said pointedly. 

“Right. Got it,” Damon chuckled. “Consider the subject closed for the moment.” He hadn’t realized until tonight how far he’d fallen for her and as much as he hated the idea of ‘stealing his brother’s girl’, he knew that Stefan had done it to himself. If he hadn’t fallen off the wagon, she wouldn’t be considering ending it with him. If he hadn’t stood Elena up then Damon would never have had a chance to get that close. If he hadn’t chewed on that friend of Elena’s then she would be by his side helping him through this. Damon knew that giving up his own chance at happiness wouldn’t fix Stefan and Elena. Nothing would. 

He knew that they’d had a connection right from the start. From the moment they’d met in that road. That had been part of the reason that he’d compelled her. It had scared him more than he wanted to admit. Especially since she looked like Katherine and he was still trying to save Katherine at the time. He considered releasing the compulsion now, but he was afraid she would kill him for it. He knew how she felt about compulsions, though in all fairness, he hadn’t at the time. After long enough of uncomfortable silence as they sat on opposite ends of the couch, he decided to bring it up just to have something to say. “Hypothetically speaking…if I had…say…put a compulsion on you before I knew you and knew how you felt about them…how much would you hate me for it?” 

Elena blinked at him for a moment before she laughed. “You realize that compulsion broke after my little trip to the past right?” 

“Oh,” Damon said sheepishly. “You never said anything.” 

Elena shrugged. “It wasn’t really that important,” she told him, and caught his momentary grimace before he wiped it off. “I mean…the memory itself was nice. Great even. I just meant that in the broader sense of everything going on at the time, my trip to the past, Katherine drama, and all that…it kinda got lost in the shuffle.”

“Yeah. I get that. I would have expected at least a little yelling over it though,” Damon told her, wanting to get it over with if it was coming. 

Elena rolled her eyes. “I’m sure I can work up a good rant if you’ll give me a few minutes if you really want one.” 

Damon laughed and shook his head. “Not particularly.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Like you said, you didn’t know me and didn’t know how I felt about compulsions and it’s not like you were covering up anything bad you did, though I would like to know why you felt it was necessary. I don’t buy the whole not wanting people to know you were back yet line.”

Damon snorted. “That would be one of those subjects best left for later,” he admitted. 

“But you’ll tell me later?” she asked. 

“Yes. I will,” he promised. If she was actually willing to give him a chance, he’d give her anything she wanted.


	15. Chapter 15

“Stefan’s awake,” Damon told her. 

“How do you…” she trailed off when Damon just tapped his ears. “Right. Forgot for a sec.” 

“Should we go check on him?” 

“Let me go talk to him alone?” she asked hopefully and Damon nodded, waving a hand for her to go ahead. 

Elena headed down the stairs and took a deep breath when she got to the bottom before stepping around the corner. “Hey,” she said sadly. “You doing okay?” 

“I’m alive. Please tell me Amber is too?” 

“She is,” Elena told him. 

“Good. I’m glad,” Stefan said relieved. 

“Is it safe for me to come in?” she asked, not really wanting to do this through the door. 

“As long as you’re not bleeding anywhere yeah. I’m in control,” Stefan assured her. 

She trusted him not to take any chances with that, so opened the door and stepped in, catching a glimpse of Damon speeding down the stairs, but forcing herself to ignore it, knowing that he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. He just wanted to be close in case Stefan tried to hurt her. She went over and sat on the cot next to him. “So we need to talk.”

“We’re breaking up aren’t we,” Stefan sighed resignedly. 

“What makes you say that?” she asked. 

The fact that she hadn’t denied it was all the answer he needed. “Literally stabbing me in the back was the first clue,” he tried to joke, but it fell flat so he gave her a real answer. “I knew it was coming sooner or later, and I know it’s completely my fault that it’s sooner rather than later.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, wondering what, if anything he’d picked up on. 

“Ever since your trip to the past, you’ve been getting more distant with me and closer to Damon. I tried to ignore it and give it some time, but I know now it was always a lost cause.”

“I’m not breaking up with you just because of him,” Elena told him. 

“I know,” Stefan told her. “It’s because of me. Who I am and the fact that no matter how hard I try, the monster inside me is just under the surface. Now that you know the whole truth about us, you know that Damon’s monster is just the surface.” 

“That’s not…”

“It’s okay, Elena. I’ve known for a long time…a lot longer than your trip to the past, that you seeing Damon as the monster was the only chance I ever had with you.” 

“Why do you say that?” she asked confused. 

“There has always been some sort of connection between you two. From the moment you met. At first, I thought it was just him trying to get me back for what I did to him with Katherine, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it was real.”

“When did you?” Elena asked curiously, wondering how long he’d been suffering with this idea and keeping it to himself. 

“About the time he showed up and offered to compel Jeremy after Vicki. For a few minutes there I could see the old Damon in him. The one that actually allowed himself to feel. The one with compassion, and there was no question that he was doing it for you. Everything since then has just been me lying to myself.” 

“I never wanted things to go this way, Stefan. I hope you know that,” Elena said sadly, taking his hand. 

“I know, Elena. I don’t blame you at all. I don’t blame him either. Karma’s a bitch,” he huffed a laugh. “Take care of him, Elena. He deserves a chance to be happy for once.” 

“I will,” she whispered, not sure what else to say to that. 

She realized the conversation was over when Stefan got up and used the hand he was holding to pull her to her feet and pull her into a hug. “I really do wish you both all the happiness in the world.”

“Thank you, Stefan. And I hope you find yours too,” she whispered as she hugged him tightly before pulling back and kissing his cheek. 

As she walked out, Stefan called after her, “Make sure you lock the door behind you.” She nodded and did so, catching glimpse of Damon disappearing in a blur back upstairs as she left the cell. 

She headed upstairs wiping the tears from her eyes and sniffling and when she got back to the living room, Damon was sitting on the couch and with one look at her emotional state, he held his arm open in invitation. She couldn’t deny that she needed the comfort so she curled up to his side, but still felt the need to explain that this didn’t mean she was ready for their talk. “Damon…”

“Shh,” he cut her off. “We can talk another time. There’s no rush.” 

She smiled and rested her head on his chest as he ran a hand through her hair soothingly as he took a drink of his whiskey only to find the glass pulled from his hand as Elena finished it. He chuckled and easily refilled it with one hand without dislodging her and asked amusedly, “Do you want one of your own or would you rather share?” 

“Would one of my own involve you moving?” she mumbled against his chest. 

“Well the glasses are over there, so…”

“Sharing is fine,” she told him. 

He turned and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Whatever you want, Lena.” 

“What I want is a margarita,” she joked as she wiped her wet cheek. 

“Unfortunately, I don’t quite have the ingredients on hand for that, and you’re a bit young for a bar to serve you,” he pointed out amusedly, making a mental note to go shopping soon. 

“Yeah. I know. I’m out of luck. Why do you think I’m actually drinking your nasty whiskey?” she teased. 

“I’ll have you know, this is top shelf stuff right here,” he pretended to be affronted. 

“Snob,” she laughed, poking him in the stomach playfully. 

“Just because you have no taste,” he snorted, digging his fingers into her side. She squeaked and twisted in his arms and he leaned down to steal a kiss, not even realizing what he was doing until after he did it when he pulled back quickly and loosened his grip on her so she could get away. “Sorry,” he said with a wince. 

“No, don’t be,” she said, leaning over to steal a quick kiss of her own. “It’s fine.” She hadn’t expected to be as okay as she was so quickly, but being with him just seemed so natural. It was so easy to fall into and if he hadn’t reacted the way he had, she might not have even noticed. As she thought back she could remember a few times in the past that they had been like this and realized that Stefan had been right. As soon as she started to see through his façade, this had been inevitable. 

Damon smiled happily as they relaxed back into their previous position and he kissed her head. She wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, but that was okay. It was painfully obvious now where this was headed and he just hoped that he didn’t screw it up like Stefan had. He realized now that he’d only thought that he loved Katherine and he’d spent a century and a half chasing something that was just a shadow compared to the real thing. 

This time, the silence that stretched between them was comfortable and peaceful, and they both reveled in it. After a while, he could tell she was starting to doze off, so he said, “If you’re staying tonight, I can make you up a bed in one of the other rooms.” He knew that she wasn’t ready to share his bed yet and he didn’t like the idea of her sleeping in Stefan’s bed. 

“That would be nice,” she muttered sleepily. 

Damon grinned and eased her off him. Thanks to his vampire speed, he was back in under a minute and picking her up to carry her upstairs. She chuckled and shook her head before laying it on his shoulder. She could have walked, but if he wanted to carry her she wasn’t going to complain. He set her down gently in the bed before pulling the plush blanket over her and leaning down to kiss her forehead. She smiled at him and muttered a quiet, “Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight, Elena,” he whispered back, brushing a hand over her cheek before heading out. He headed all the way down to check on his brother before bed, and when he found him still awake, staring into space he asked, “You doing okay? You want me to bring you some books or something?” 

Stefan sighed before nodding. “Yeah, thanks.” 

Damon was back a few minutes later and brough a small stack of books. “I am sorry, you know. For how things happened.” 

“I know, Damon,” Stefan told him. “But I do expect you to drop this whole eternity of misery crap now,” he half joked. 

Damon chuckled and clapped a hand on Stefan’s shoulder. “Consider it dropped, little brother.” As he turned to leave he hesitated. “We’re good right?” he asked hopefully. 

“We’re good, brother,” Stefan said with a nod. “But if you screw it up, I do plan to be there to pick up the pieces,” he teased. 

“I guess I better not screw it up then,” Damon laughed. “Goodnight, Stef.” 

“Night,” Stefan replied, smile creeping onto his face as the cell locked behind Damon. He may be nursing a broken heart right now and starting to go into withdrawals, but that was the first time his brother had called him by his nickname since before they became vampires. It was a small piece of good in the crapload of bad, but he would take it.


	16. Chapter 16

Elena woke up a few hours later in cold sweat, gasping for breath as she always did these last couple months whenever she slept alone, and sometimes when she was with Stefan too. She sighed heavily and got up, heading for Damon’s room. She stopped before she reached his bed though and just looked at him. He looked so peaceful and sweet and beautiful in his sleep and she wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed with him, but she didn’t want to wake him up and she wasn’t even sure if he would be comfortable with her there. “S’wrong?” he slurred sleepily, cracking one eye open at her. 

“I had a nightmare. Do you mind…” Damon’s response was to lift the other side of the blanket and Elena smiled and crawled in, hesitantly moving to his side. Her hesitation disappeared when his arm wrapped around her and pulled her close and she sighed happily and rested her head on his chest and snuggled into him. He kissed the top of her head and was soon back asleep and she followed right after. 

When Damon woke up the next morning, he was surprised for a moment to find her in his arms, but then he remembered her coming in after a nightmare and he kicked himself. He should have asked if she wanted to talk about it. He should have tried to comfort her. He just hadn’t been awake enough to consider either of those options. He pressed his face into her hair and just breathed her in, tracing his thumb lightly over the arm that she had across his stomach. “Morning,” she murmurred against his chest. 

Damon stilled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered. “You can go back to sleep.”

“M’okay. Was already waking up,” she slurred as she rolled to her back and stretched before returning to her position. 

“How did you sleep?” he asked with a smile, trailing his hand down her cheek. 

“Better than I have in months,” she told him, instinctively pressing a kiss to his bare chest without even realizing what she was doing. She was actually surprised how well she’d slept. Even when she wasn’t alone before there had been enough tension that she never slept great, but last night…she’d never felt as safe and comfortable as she did in his arms. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. “I should have asked last night…”

“S’okay,” she told him. “You were sleepy. So was I.” He chuckled a bit as he traced his hand over her back and she smiled at the rumble of his chest. “Was just the same nightmare I’ve been having for months. Burning.” 

“Burning?” Damon asked confused. 

“When Emily and I burned at the stake when she died.” She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t remember her mentioning that in the wake of all the other crap she had thrown at him and with him being as drunk as he was. 

“Oh god, you felt that?!” Damon asked in horror. 

“It’s fine. It’s not something anyone can do anything about. I just…dream about it sometimes.” 

“It’s not fine, Elena. I’ve burned before too. I know how awful it is,” he told her, hugging her tightly. 

Elena winced at the idea that he’d gone through that too. She knew that it would have been even worse for him in some ways since vampires felt things stronger than humans. Even pain. At the same time though, he wouldn’t have burned as long. Vampires also die faster in fire so he would have been dead if he had. Either way though, she hated that he’d felt that even for a second. “Yeah. It is awful. But it can’t be changed, so…”

“I could compel you to forget,” he offered. 

“No,” Elena shook her head. 

“Baby, I know that you hate being compelled, but in this case…”

She sat up on her elbow and looked down at him, using her finger to try and smooth out the worried wrinkles in his forehead. “It’s not because I hate being compelled, Damon. It’s because as horrible as it was, I value that experience.” His face scrunched up in confusion and she snorted in amusement at the look. “For one thing, it taught me something, just like every other experience of my life. It gave me a new appreciation for what people in that situation went through. And it gave me a greater appreciation for Emily. As bad as it was, being able to be with her for that, so that she wasn’t alone…that meant something to me. And I’m sure it meant something to her. I don’t want to lose that.”

Damon sighed heavily and nodded. He didn’t really understand, but he understood enough to know that it was important to her to keep the memory. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t do anything about the dreams though. “Okay. Then will you let me try and help with the nightmares?” 

“How?” she asked curiously. 

“Well I’m not a shrink or anything, but I have read quite a bit on nightmares and theories behind them and stuff,” he told her. “If you’ll let me into your dreams, I think I could help them not be so bad.”

Elena didn’t even want to consider why he’d done so much reading on the subject, though she had a pretty good idea. “Okay,” she agreed. “That would be nice.” 

Damon smiled at the trust she was placing in him and reached a hand to her cheek. “Thank you, Elena,” he said sincerely. 

“I trust you, Damon,” she said gently as she leaned into his touch and he swore then and there to never make her regret that. 

He was overcome with the urge to kiss her, but didn’t want to push things with them any faster than she was comfortable with, so he pulled his gaze away from her. “We should go check on Stefan. The human blood should be burned out of his system enough for him to have some of his stuff.” 

Elena sighed at the end of the moment, but nodded and got up. She hadn’t been able to resist getting a good look at his body as he got up though, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. He chuckled and winked at her as he grabbed for some clothes and she blushed, but smiled at him before looking away and heading out the door. 

Damon was right behind her by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs and then she followed him, not knowing where Stefan kept his blood. “He prefers to hunt for it fresh, but always keeps a stash here for emergencies,” Damon told her as he opened the fridge in the basement and dug under the human blood before pulling out a jar of blood. He filled up a water bottle with it and handed it to Elena. “Why don’t you take that to him while I have my own breakfast?” he suggested with a gesture to the human blood. “And then we can get you yours.” 

“Okay,” she nodded, but still felt the need to add, “I don’t mind seeing you eat though. I mean, living people might be different, but from the bag it won’t bother me.” 

Damon huffed a laugh as he said, “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

She turned and headed to the other side of the basement where the cell was and frowned when she saw Stefan sitting on the bed with his head in his hands and his ring on the floor. “I brought you breakfast,” she told him. 

“No thank you,” he said miserably and Elena sighed. Apparently it was time for the guilt portion of the process. Damon had mentioned a bit about how this went, but she could have guessed it from knowing him as a human. 

“Stefan you need to eat,” she said firmly. 

“No, I’m making the decision I should have made back then,” Stefan told her. 

That just pissed Elena off and she opened the door and went inside, shoving the bottle in his hand roughly. “Well it’s too late to fix that now,” she told him. “You do not get to force this life on your brother and then just abandon him to it. Do you have any idea what it will do to him if you starve yourself?” 

“He has you now,” Stefan told her. “He’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. He has me for now, but unless one of you will consider turning me, he won’t have me forever.” 

Stefan gaped at her for a second before shaking his head. “You don’t want this life, Elena.”

“Don’t tell me what I want, Stefan. You have no idea what I want. But that’s a conversation for another time. As of right now, I’m human and he will lose me at some point. And even if that wasn’t the case, you’re his brother. If you think for one second that me being in his life would take away the pain of losing you, then you’re an idiot.” 

“He hates me, Elena. And he has every right to. I’m a constant reminder of everything that happened. Everything I did to him,” Stefan told her. 

“What you did to him, Stefan, was unforgivable,” Elena told him. “But you’re his brother, and even when he’s mad at you that still means something. To both of you. Whether you’ll admit it or not. You /owe/ him, Stefan, and you do /not/ get to take the easy way out of that. Drink,” she ordered before getting up and heading out, locking the door behind her.


	17. Chapter 17

Elena stopped short at the sight of Damon frozen in the hallway with a look that she couldn’t quite decipher. When he turned to head up the stairs, she followed. “What do you want for breakfast?” he asked her. “I’m not really a cook, unlike my dear brother, but I’m sure I can figure something out without screwing it up too bad.”

“I’m not really a big breakfast person,” she told him. “I just want some coffee and toast.” Damon nodded and went to get the coffee started while Elena grabbed some bread to put in the toaster. “I’m sorry, Damon. I know I shouldn’t have gotten mad at him like that and said those things but…” 

“Did you mean it?” he interrupted her as he poured two cups of coffee for them. 

“What?” she asked as she sat down with her toast. 

“I’m sorry. I know I said that we could have this conversation when you were feeling up to it, but I don’t think I can wait anymore. I just…I need to know where we stand here,” Damon said nervously. 

Elena sucked in a sharp breath, but realized that Damon was right. It wasn’t fair to him for her to leave him hanging like this. Making him wait and wonder. She had implied something and then let it sit and it was understandably driving him nuts. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said reaching out and taking his coffee-free hand. “Stefan was right last night,” she told him. “We have had some kind of connection since the moment we met, and once I got the memory of our first meeting back, it was even more obvious.”

“That’s why I compelled you to forget it, you know,” he told her, answering her question from last night now that they were doing this. “I felt it too and it scared the hell out of me. Especially with where the whole Katherine thing was at that point and the fact that you looked like her.” 

Elena smiled and threaded their fingers together. “I get that,” she told him. “I don’t agree with the way you handled it,” she chuckled. “But I get it.” 

“So you are pissed at me for it?” 

“No, Damon. I’m not. It’s all in the past. I’m over it,” she assured him. “But yes, this connection between us was always there. I just fought it tooth and nail because I couldn’t see past the surface in you. And every time I started to, things would go to hell again.”

“You mean I would screw up again,” Damon snorted. 

“I wasn’t gonna put it like that,” Elena said amusedly. “But basically, yeah.”

“I’m gonna keep screwing up, Elena,” he said sadly. “That’s what I do.”

“But now I understand it,” she said gently. 

“So you’re just gonna stand aside and do nothing while I kill people and hurt people,” he said skeptically. 

“No,” she shook her head. “I’m going to yell at you and call you an asshole and maybe even hit you, and depending on the situation I’ll be mad at you for a while, but in the end, I do understand it.”

Damon sighed. “I can’t let you live like that, Elena. Always having to defend me and forgive the unforgivable. I don’t deserve you. Not anymore. Maybe back in eighteen sixty four I could have, but not now,” he said softly, blinking the tears from his eyes as he got up and headed to the living room. 

Elena watched him go for a minute as she ordered her thoughts and considered how to explain in a way that he would understand. He had just taken the first sip of his drink when she sat down beside him. “You misunderstood me, Damon.”

“It doesn’t make what I said any less true,” he told her, not wanting to drag this out anymore. 

“Yes, it does,” she said firmly. “Because what I was trying to say is that I understand that it’s not you. Not really. You’ve created this persona to hide all your feelings and pain behind, but it’s not who you are. You’ve just lived like this for so long and I get that you can’t just turn it off like that. There are going to be stumbles and backslides along the way as you fall back on the habits that you’ve nurtured for so long. But the man underneath that persona…that’s the one that I love and the one that I will stand beside no matter the struggles.” 

“That man doesn’t exist anymore, Elena. He died back in eighteen sixty four,” Damon sighed. 

“You’re wrong,” she said confidently. “I’ve seen him. I see him right now. The one who is willing to give up his chance at happiness for someone else’s sake. The man who came to my room and handed me a stake, willing to accept any punishment for hurting me. The man who saved me from a car accident and taught me how to have fun again. He’s still there Damon. You’ve just spent so long running from him that you can’t see it right now.”

Damon got up with a huff and started pacing. “So you expect to spend the rest of your life trying to fix me.” 

Elena resisted the urge to beat her head against the wall. “No, Damon. You don’t need to be fixed. You just need to be loved. And that’s what I plan to spend the rest of my life doing.” 

Damon ran a hand through his hair as he was losing the will to do the right thing. Finally he came to a decision. Sort of. He would put the decision in her hands and absolve himself from it. He turned to look at her and asked seriously. “What do /you/ want?” 

Elena smiled and got up, walking slowly over to him. “I want…a love that consumes me,” she said as she ran her hands up his chest. “I want passion,” she slid a hand over his cheek and smiled wider when his eyes closed and he leaned into the touch. “Adventure,” she ran her hand through his hair as his head turned, chasing it and ended with his face resting against her arm. “And even a little danger,” she finished as she closed the last small distance between them. “I want /you/, Damon,” she whispered. 

The words had barely left her mouth when Damon’s lips were crashing into hers as an arm wrapped tightly around her waist and his other hand went to her cheek. Elena kissed him back just as desperately and soon found her back against the wall as he kissed down her neck and collarbones before moving back up as he gasped out, “God, I love you, Elena.” 

Elena was too overcome for words at the moment. She had seen his passion before, but experiencing it herself was a whole different story. She ran a hand through his hair and the other over his back as she lifted a leg and wrapped it around his waist. Damon moaned, capturing her lips again as his knees bent and he rocked his hips, dragging his erection over her core. She gasped and let her head fall back as his lips attacked her throat. They moved down as far as he could get before her shirt got in the way as he continued rolling his hips against her and a hand slid up her thigh, to her ass, pulling her in to match his rhythm. 

Elena felt like her whole body was on fire in a good way this time and she wanted more. She /needed/ more. She reached down and yanked his shirt open as her hand in his hair pulled his head back and this time it was her mouth moving down his neck and throat as her hand firmly caressed his chest. When she pressed a nip to his collarbone that was the last straw for Damon who grabbed her other leg and lifted her up, speeding them to the bedroom so fast that she was a little dizzy, but quickly recovered as he laid her on the bed. 

Later, Elena would be glad that she wasn’t wearing one of her nicer shirts, but right now she didn’t care in the slightest as it ripped down the middle and Damon was moving down her body with breathless open mouth kisses and only since she couldn’t reach much of Damon and her hands had to be doing /something/ she managed to get rid of her bra. No sooner than it was gone, Damon was there, sucking her breast into his mouth and she let out a gasping moan as she reached down to his shoulders to try and push his open shirt off of them. 

Damon didn’t pause in his ministrations as he rolled his shoulders to drop the shirt and lifted his arms one by one to get rid of it and then her other breast was in his hand as his lips moved back up her body and captured hers again and she lifted her head to meet him. Her hands slid down his chest and stomach to the front of his pants as his hips continued to slide against her. It took her a minute of fumbling to get the button undone and then she let out a guttural whine as he moved away. In that moment she felt like she was going to die without the fire of his touch. He wasn’t gone long though. Just long enough to get rid of his pants and then he was back, kissing her deeply and she pulled him against her needing the skin contact. 

Damon’s lips and tongue resumed the trek down her body, pausing at her breasts as his hands went to the front of her pants. He got them undone quickly and she lifted her hips to allow him to slide them off as his mouth continued down. Damon’s tongue slid through her wet folds and he moaned at the taste of her as she cried out in pleasure, hand gripping his hair while the other one fisted in the sheets and she writhed beneath him. Damon slid his tongue inside her as his hands slid up the insides of her thighs. One hand continued it’s trek up her body while the other joined his mouth and he sucked on her clit as his fingers replaced his tongue inside her. 

Elena was on sensory overload. She’d always thought that there was something wrong with her because she’d never had an orgasm before but now she could feel the coiling in her belly as her nerves stood on end and then it exploded through her with an intensity the she couldn’t have anticipated as she screamed Damon’s name. He kept going until she stopped trembling and moved his way back up her body slowly as she panted for breath and her hands roamed over him. Once he reached her neck, he whispered questioningly, “keep going?” desperately hoping that the answer was yes because he felt like he was about to explode. 

“God…yes…please,” Elena panted out and arched up off the bed again as she felt him slowly sliding into her with a relieved moan. She pulled his lips to hers, not even caring about the taste of her as he pressed harder and deeper inside her, setting a slow steady rhythm that was both holding him back and building her up again. His hands slid up her arms, pressing them back onto the bed and threading their fingers together for a long moment before they were moving again. As he pulled away from her lips, she lifted her head to follow him but changed her mind and started kissing over his neck and shoulders as he threw his head back giving her free access. 

The next while was spent in a blur of roaming hands and lips and the press of bodies as they moved together and the next time that Elena felt the crashing wave of her orgasm wash over her, she felt the pulsing inside her as well as Damon cried out her name in ecstasy. Their lips and tongues met as their movements slowed and stuttered, riding out the wave, but the kiss broke sooner than they wanted as they both gasped for air.


	18. Chapter 18

Damon stilled over top of her and rested his forehead against hers, their panting breaths mingling in the small space between them. Elena’s hand came up to caress his cheek while both of his hands tangled in her hair, elbows resting above her shoulders as he kept the bulk of his weight off of her. They stayed there like that, just being, for a long time, before the silence was broken. “I know I said it in the heat of the moment and all, but I still meant it. I do love you, Elena. With every fiber of my being,” he whispered.

Elena smiled brightly. Like she could ever doubt it after that. “And I love you, Damon. More than I ever thought was possible.” 

Damon closed his eyes and let the emotion wash over him before tilting his head forward and kissing her softly and then rolling to the side. She followed him and they ended up in much the same position they’d woken up this morning with him on his back and her stretched along his side resting her head on his chest. After a while, Damon just had to ask, “What did you mean when you said ‘unless one of us would consider turning you’?”

“I thought it was pretty self-explanatory,” Elena chuckled. 

“It almost sounded like that’s what you wanted though,” Damon said hesitantly. 

“It is,” she told him. 

Damon sighed heavily. That was what he was afraid of. “You may think that, but others have to. Your mother did and then she hated me for it. She hated it so much that she even turned off her humanity.”

Elena propped up on her elbow and looked at him seriously. “Forgetting what you think I want and how you think I’d feel…if it was your choice and yours alone…would you want me as a vampire?” 

Damon could sense the trap in that question and there was only one way to answer. “I would love nothing more than to have you by my side forever, but I can’t do that to you, Elena. I love you too much to be selfish with you.” 

“Then you let /me/ worry about what /I/ want,” she told him. She could see that he wasn’t convinced so she said, “When we were in Atlanta and you were caught by Lexi’s boyfriend…how much of the conversation we had do you remember?” 

“Not a lot. I was a little more concerned with the bat that was repeatedly breaking my bones,” he huffed a laugh. “I do remember you begging for my life and worrying about how hard you hit your head that you even cared.”

Elena snorted amusedly. Only Damon would be worried about /her/ at a time like that. “Lexi once told me that if it’s real, you can’t walk away. She turned him so that they could be together forever and neither of them regretted it as long as they had each other.”

“He regretted it after I killed Lexi,” Damon pointed out, voice laced with guilt. 

“But he still wouldn’t have given up the time they had for anything,” she told him, feeling bad for bringing that up now, but not sure how to take it back, so she tried a different way. “Emily told me how vampires can’t change. How they’re stuck as they were when they turned. Even if they try to bury it, it’s still there.”

“What does that have to do with…”

“I’m happy, Damon,” she told him. “I love who I am and I love being with you. I love you with an all consuming passion, and /this/ is the time I want to hold onto for the rest of eternity.” 

“You can still be who want and love me for the rest of your human life,” he pointed out. 

“Maybe, but maybe not. Humans grow and evolve and change over time. I might outgrow you one day. Or I might end up being someone I hate…”

“Or you might not,” Damon argued. 

“I know. But my point is…I have it all right now. Why would I want to risk losing it when I don’t have to? And I know you’re going to say that I could find something better, and maybe you’d be right, but the fact is that I don’t want to. Right now, this is as good as it gets and if I can have that forever then that’s what I want.” 

“And what about the rest of your life,” Damon asked her. “If you turn you’ll never be able to have kids, a career, a normal life…”

“Normal is overrated,” she chuckled. “As far as a career…I want to be a writer. There’s nothing stopping me from doing that for as long as I want. I’d just need a new pen name every few decades and kids…there is a such thing as adoption if that’s something I ever feel that strongly about.” 

“You can’t do this just for me, Elena,” Damon told her. “I can’t be the one to take your life away like that.”

“It’s not just for you, Damon. It’s for me too. I have so many ideas that I want to write about that I could never get to in one lifetime and that’s if I never did anything but write, and then I would still miss out on so much. All the great books I’d never have time to read. All the places I’d never get to see. I want to watch history unfold, Damon, and yes, I want to do it by your side, but it’s not /just/ for you.” 

Damon sighed heavily, hoping that he wouldn’t regret this. “Okay, I’ll make a deal with you. You take a little time to think about it. Really think. And if it’s still what you want when your school break rolls around, we’ll take a little vacation and I’ll turn you and teach you to live and function among humans. But please, Elena, for my sake…be absolutely sure first.”

“I will,” she promised. “I think I have more information and insight than anyone who has ever made this decision before, Damon. I’ve seen examples of all the extremes and everything in between. Not just you and Stefan either, but Katherine, Lexi, Anna, Pearl, others that I don’t know their names. I have Emily’s insight, my ancestors’ opinions, /and/ I’ll have you to help me adjust. I know what I’m doing.” She wasn’t going to tell him the biggest reason. At least not yet. Everything she had said was true, but so was everything that he said. The deciding factor for her though, the one thing that tipped the scales, was what Emily had said about him. How he could be okay as long as he wasn’t alone. She’d already seen so much of a change in him since they’d met and that was with minimal contact. The pain and hurt that had formed the shell around his true self was already starting to show cracks. How could she risk ever leaving him alone again with that?

“That’s true,” Damon admitted. “But it doesn’t make me any less afraid.” 

“Not even a little bit?” she asked as she trailed a hand down his chest.

“Okay, maybe a little bit,” he chuckled. “But not a lot.”

“On the off chance that I do regret it, I won’t hate you for it Damon. I won’t resent you. Because it’s my choice. One I’m making willingly for my own reasons. Whatever happens, it’s not on you. Just know that.” 

“Okay,” he breathed out. “I’ll try to remember that.” He pulled her down for a long slow kiss before saying, “As much as I would love to stay in bed with you all day, we need to be downstairs as much as possible.”

Elena groaned, but nodded. “I know we can’t stay in bed all day, but is there a reason we /have/ to be downstairs?” she asked curiously. She wasn’t complaining about it, but it sounded like it was a little more important than she would have thought. 

“The basement is insulated and solid enough that I can’t hear Stefan from up here if he needs something,” he told her. 

“Ah. Right. We should probably head down then…and I should probably go apologize to him for yelling at him earlier.” 

Damon laughed and shook his head. “You told him exactly what he needed to hear, as hard as it was for both of us to actually hear it. But if you feel the need to apologize and talk to him about it, feel free.” 

“I do. And I need to apologize to you too,” she told him. “I know that time is probably hard for you to think about and I should have been more considerate of your feelings before going on a rant about it.” 

“It’s fine,” Damon brushed it off. “It was a long time ago.”

“But I can see how much it still hurts,” she said gently. She could see it even now. 

“Then quit talking about it already,” Damon huffed as he got out of bed to get dressed. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Elena said sadly, following him out of bed. “But it’s probably going to come up while I’m talking to your brother, so…”

Damon dropped his pants back to the floor. “You know…I could probably use a shower before I head down.” 

“Okay,” Elena said with a smile, pulling him into a kiss. “I’ll meet you downstairs when you’re done.” She could use a shower too, but that would defeat the point. She could take one later.


	19. Chapter 19

Elena went down to the basement again, and looked inside the cell, seeing Stefan still sitting in the same position he had been earlier, with the full bottle of blood sitting at his feet and she sighed and went in to sit next to him. “You haven’t eaten.”

Stefan winced as she got close. He could smell the sex on her. He could smell his brother all over her. He put it out of his mind though. It was for the best and he’d meant what he said about hoping that they were happy together and them being good for each other. Instead he just addressed her statement. “No,” Stefan told her. “See, I get what you were saying, but I just can’t. It’s not about wanting to take the easy way out.”

“Then what is it?” she coaxed. 

“I’m not like Damon, Elena,” he sighed. “I can’t keep control of myself. Even at his worst, he does what he means to and no more. I can’t do that.”

She nodded. She could understand that. He’d always had impulse control issues. Then once it was over, his guilt complex would set in. She’d only seen it happen once when she was in the past, but Emily had told her about other times. “And you think letting yourself desiccate is the answer?” 

“When you have a rabid dog, you put it down,” Stefan said harshly. “Since no one will give me that, I’ll have to settle for keeping people safe.”

“You’re not a dog, Stefan,” she snapped. “You’re a person. And people don’t get put down. They get help.” 

“Don’t you see? There is no help for this. For me. No matter how long I manage to keep myself in check, eventually I always break. I always lose it. And then people die. A lot of people. We got lucky this time, Elena. And the only reason we got lucky is because I loved you and trusted you enough to let you get close. You stopped me before it could get any worse. We won’t be that lucky again.” 

“Things are different now, Stefan. Even you have to see that,” she told him. 

“Different how?” he scoffed. 

“You and Damon are brothers again. I’m still here. Just because I’m with him now doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon you. You’re still my friend. At least I hope you are.”

“Of course, I am,” Stefan replied as though it should be obvious. 

“You have a support system now. One that you never had before. /That/ is why we got lucky this time. And it’s why we’ll keep being lucky.”

“You really think so?” Stefan asked hopefully. 

“I can’t promise that no one will die, ever. Mistakes happen. But we’ll keep a better look out for you. I know the signs now at least, even if Damon’s not paying attention,” she chuckled. 

“You both deserve better than spending your lives keeping me on a leash,” he pointed out. 

“And we won’t need to. You kept yourself in check for a long time, and you can keep doing so. We’ll just be there for the rare occasions you struggle. It’s not like it’ll be a full time job or anything. So please, Stefan. Drink this,” she picked the bottle up and put it back in his hands. “We don’t want to lose you.” 

Stefan sighed. “On one condition.” 

“What’s that?” she asked. 

“If I completely go off the rails again and you can’t stop me before I go on a killing spree, you’ll either put me down or let me desiccate,” he said firmly. 

“I will not agree to ‘put you down’ no matter what, but I can agree to a desiccation time out if that’s the only way,” she told him. 

Stefan knew that she was the hold-out here. Damon would be a much easier sell, so that promise was enough for him to agree. “Okay then,” he said opening the bottle and drinking. 

“Good. Thank you,” she said with a nod, bending down to pick up his ring and handing it to him. “Do you know how much longer we’ll need to keep you in here?” 

“A few more days should be good. Long enough to get my system accustomed to the animal blood again,” he told her. 

“Okay. I’ll make your excuses at school. Tell them you have the flu or something,” she told him and he nodded gratefully. “And I’ll come by every day to check on you.”

“I’m sure it’ll be for more than just to check on me,” he teased tensely. He was trying to be okay with her and Damon together, but it would take time. He would just fake it until it wasn’t fake anymore. 

She knew what he was doing, and wasn’t going to make it any harder for him, so she ignored that and just pulled him into a hug. “Take care of yourself. I’ll probably come say goodbye before I head home later.” 

“I’d appreciate that,” he said as he hugged her back before she headed out. 

Once she headed upstairs, she went to make herself some lunch, knowing that Damon would hear her moving around so he would come down once he was out of the shower. Sure enough he was joining her just a few minutes later as she was slicing some cheese for a sandwich. He came over with a smile and wrapped his arms around her stomach from behind and kissed her neck. She grinned and turned for a real kiss, but unfortunately stopped paying attention to the slicer and cut her finger open. “Ouch…damnit,” she jerked it away and went to instinctively put it in her mouth before she stopped and smirked, holding it towards Damon. 

Damon moaned in anticipation and moved forward, allowing her to put her finger in his mouth, and his eyes fluttered closed at the taste of her blood. Elena could see his eyes doing the vampire thing, but didn’t feel any teeth, and she was reminded about what Stefan said about him always being able to stay in control. If this wasn’t the ultimate proof then nothing was. Damon kept going for a few minutes before he swiped his tongue over the cut one more time and pulled away, grabbing a bandaid from the drawer to put on it. “Mmm. Thank you. You taste delicious, in case you were wondering,” he grinned, pretending to bite her neck playfully. 

She laughed and pushed him away, but just far enough to allow her to wipe the blood off the counter and set aside the contaminated cheese. “You want a sandwich with that or should I throw it away?” she teased. 

“Waste not want not,” Damon joked and made a sandwich with the bloody slices, making her laugh again. Damon didn’t think he’d ever felt as accepted as he did right now. He’d been with a few humans who knew what he was, and even some that willingly let him feed on them, usually during sex, but the casual way she treated it…like it was perfectly natural…it was a bit of a rush, and he loved it. 

After lunch, they headed back to the living room and curled up on the couch. Damon was sitting sideways and leaning back against the arm of the couch while Elena laid partially on her side against his chest and they just enjoyed being together. “Do you ever miss it? The things you think I’ll miss?” she asked as she fiddled with his shirt buttons. 

“You mean the whole kids, career, normal life stuff?” 

“Mhmm.”

“Not really. I mean every once in a while I’ll wonder what might have happened if I’d never met Katherine. What I would have done after the war. If I would have gotten married or had kids, but it’s never been something I’ve longed for, you know?” he told her as he played with her hair. 

“So you like your life the way it is?” she asked, resting comfortably against his chest. 

“I do. I mean, I get why a lot of vampires hate it, don’t get me wrong. It’s not an easy life. But I don’t want easy. I never have.”

“If you had you wouldn’t have signed up for the war when you could have had the life of leisure as the son of an aristocrat,” she chuckled. 

“Exactly,” Damon told her as he played his fingers along her arm. “I wanted to turn for Katherine. I wanted to die when I lost her. But now that I’m here…it’s everything I wanted. Sometimes it sucks, but everything sucks sometimes. It’s never boring. I have a freedom I could never have any other way. I would be miserable trapped in a normal life tied down with bills and a crappy job and screaming kids.” 

“Yeah, I can’t see you ever being happy with that kind of life,” Elena agreed amusedly. 

“That doesn’t mean I’d be against adopting a kid or two if you wanted to,” he added, not caring that they’d only been together a few hours and were talking forever. They’d been talking forever most of the day. It was only natural to consider things from that perspective when you had forever to live. It wasn’t as though they were making any permanent commitments. “I’d even be okay with settling down for ten months out of the year while they go to school if you didn’t want to get them tutors and stuff on the road. Just as long as you don’t ask me to get a normal job and become Mr. Joe Suburbia.”

Elena laughed and shook her head. “Never,” she promised. “And I don’t even know if I’d ever want kids anyway. I like the idea of being free and reckless and that’s not really the life for a kid. I mean, forever is a long time and I’ll probably change my mind on that eventually and be good with taking a break from the freedom for a little while, but right now…I mean, I’ve been trapped in a ‘normal boring life’ for most of my eighteen years.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Damon chuckled as he kissed her head. “Good thing we came along to spice up your life a little bit then huh?” 

“A very good thing,” she grinned.


	20. Chapter 20

Once it started getting close to dinnertime, Damon asked, “Are you staying tonight?” 

“I have school in the morning and I don’t have my stuff here, so I need to go home. Jenna’s been complaining about how many nights I’m gone anyway.” Damon pouted at her and she laughed and stole a kiss. “I’ll stay other nights. I promise.” 

“Many other nights?” he asked with a quick kiss. 

“Many other nights,” she promised with a grin, giving him one more kiss as she got up. “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go say bye to Stefan.” 

“Be careful,” he said, reminding her of her finger. 

She nodded and headed down the stairs. The first thing Stefan said was, “Don’t come in here. I can smell blood.”

“I wasn’t going to. I cut my finger making lunch,” she told him. “I just wanted to check on you one more time before I head home. You need anything?” 

“I’m good. Thanks,” Stefan told her. “Goodnight.”

“Night Stefan,” she smiled and headed back up. Damon walked to the door and gave her a long slow kiss before she left and headed home. 

When she got home and walked in the door, she stopped short at the sight of Anna and Jeremy on the couch. “Anna!” she said nervously, looking around for a weapon and wishing she carried stakes on her. 

“Yeah, I should go,” Anna said as she got up and inched around Elena with her hands up in surrender until she had a free line to the door when she took off. 

Jeremy glared at Elena but just as he opened his mouth to say something, Jenna came in to call them to dinner. “Anna’s not staying for dinner?” she asked. 

“Yeah, she had to go,” Jeremy said, still glaring at Elena who tried to resist the urge to glare back. 

After a rather stilted dinner where Jenna tried and failed more than once to make conversation, Jeremy disappeared upstairs and Elena sighed and went after him. She knocked on his door and he opened it and snapped, “I don’t want to hear it, Elena.”

“Please, Jer. Can we just talk?” she asked hopefully. 

Jeremy opened the door and crossed his arms. “Fine. Talk.” 

Elena went in and sat on the end of his bed. “I’m just worried about you, Jeremy. There are things about Anna that you don’t know.”

“You mean that she’s a vampire? Yeah. I know that,” Jeremy said petulantly. 

“Good. But that’s not what I mean. I would be a hypocrite if it was.”

“Yeah. You would be,” Jeremy said bluntly. 

“She kidnapped you to feed to another vampire Jeremy. She tried to kill me. She had Stefan abducted and tortured,” Elena tried to reason with him. 

“I know. We talked about all that. She wasn’t going to kill me. Her mother just needed a little bit of blood and she was trying to save her. What she did to you and Stefan was from grief and wanting revenge and she apologized for all that. It’s behind her now and she just wants to get on with her life. We of all people know what it’s like to lose parents. You should be able to understand that,” Jeremy said stubbornly. 

Elena sighed as she thought that over. She tried to remember the Anna she met back in eighteen sixty four. The shy girl who worshipped her mother. But everything she’d done lately worried Elena. Then again, she’d forgiven Damon for far worse. And Stefan had just gone off the rails too. She couldn’t just give leeway to the ones she liked. Still… “I don’t trust her,” Elena said seriously. 

“Well I do. I really like her, Elena, and she likes me,” Jeremy argued. 

Elena nodded. “I don’t trust her…” she held up a hand to stop Jeremy from speaking. “But I do trust you. All I ask is that you please be careful and don’t let down your guard too much. Okay?” 

Jeremy deflated at that. “Okay. I can do that. So you’ll be nice to her?” 

“I will. And I’ll even try to make peace with Damon and Stefan for her. But if she hurts you or comes after us again…” 

“Fair enough,” Jeremy agreed, too glad that she was willing to play peacemaker to object to the last part. Besides Anna promised that she wouldn’t. 

“And please don’t ever let her turn you without talking to me about it first?” Elena all but begged. 

“Why, so you can talk me out of it?” Jeremy scoffed. 

“That would make me just as much of a hypocrite. I just want to make sure that you really understand what you’d be getting into before you make such a permanent decision.”

“You’re gonna be turned? Or have you already?” Jeremy asked shocked. 

“I’m going to be,” she told him. “Next school break so I can take some time to settle and get control of myself enough to be around people.”

“For Stefan?” he asked. 

“No. For me. Because it’s what I want. Stefan and I broke up anyway after the pageant. I’m with Damon now,” she broke the news. 

“And you have the nerve to lecture me about /Anna/ being dangerous?!” 

“And if you’ll remember I backed off on that when you assured me that it was all in the past and that you trusted her. Give me the same consideration?” Elena asked hopefully. 

Jeremy huffed but nodded. “Yeah, okay. But like you said…I’ll trust you, but I don’t trust him.” 

“That’s fair,” Elena agreed. “He’ll have to earn your trust just like Anna will have to earn mine.” 

Jeremy easily agreed to that before muttering, “Can’t say I’m really surprised about you and Damon though.” 

“You’re not?” she asked incredulously. Had everyone seen it but her?

“Nah. You’ve always been kinda hung up on him. Especially lately and after they way you two danced at the pageant…”

Elena huffed a laugh. “Now I know I’m blind if my clueless little brother figured it out before I did.” 

Jeremy couldn’t help but laugh with her. “Not so clueless apparently.” After a minute he sobered and got back to what else he was pissed at her about. “You shouldn’t have had him take my memories away.” 

“You know about that?” Elena asked horrified. 

“I read your journal, and no you don’t get to get on me about that after what you did,” he said firmly. 

Elena grit her teeth, but couldn’t honestly argue with him, but she still had to explain. “I get why you’re upset, but I can’t say that I’m sorry for it because I’m not. You don’t know what it was like. You were devastated and you still weren’t even over Mom and Dad. It was like you wanted to just curl up and die and I couldn’t take seeing you like that. I just wanted to make it better.”

“Not like that,” Jeremy snapped. “They were MY memories. It should have been MY decision. How would you feel if I made that kind of decision for you?” 

Elena sighed sadly. He had a point. She would have hated it. Hell, she wouldn’t even let Damon take the memories of the worst experience of her life that had her debilitated with nightmares every night. “You’re right Jer. I get it.”

“I want them back,” he said firmly. “Anna said that he can give them back if he wants to.” 

“On one condition,” Elena told him. He glared at her for daring to impose conditions, but didn’t say anything so Elena continued. “You have to promise me that you won’t go off the rails and that you’ll talk to me or at least someone if you need to. Okay?” 

Jeremy considered that for a minute before nodding. “Okay. I can live with that.” She really was just trying to look out for him. “But whatever happens, I keep the memories unless /I/ decide to give them up.”

“Only if it doesn’t end up being life or death. I won’t let you die because of it, but otherwise, yes. I can agree to that.” Jeremy nodded his own agreement too. “But can it wait until the weekend? I can have Damon do it Friday after school that way you have the weekend to deal before going back to school.”

“I guess that works,” Jeremy said. At least he would be getting them back. 

“So we’re okay now?” Elena asked hopefully. 

“We will be,” Jeremy promised. He still felt betrayed, but as long as she would fix it, he could get over it. It wasn’t like she’d done it to be mean. 

Elena and Jeremy spent the next couple hours reconnecting, with a lot of vampire talk thrown in before Elena went to get ready for bed.


	21. Chapter 21

Damon jumped up and slipped in Elena’s window after she was asleep. He had promised to help her with her nightmares and supposed it was a good thing she was sleeping at home tonight since she didn’t have them with him. He slipped her necklace off without waking her up and then sat next to her bed and waited for her to start having one. He had thought long and hard about the best way to do this. He had beaten his by empowering himself to kill everyone who hurt him, but that wouldn’t work for her. It would just make it more of a nightmare. He considered rescuing her, or having someone else rescue her, but that would still make her feel powerless. Safe, but powerless. No he had to help her save herself, but without killing other people. And it had to be just as real as what she was experiencing. Believable. 

When she started twisting and whimpering, he moved over and placed a hand to her cheek. He didn’t actually need the physical contact, but he wanted it. He entered her dream and he hadn’t even considered how hard it would be for him to see her like that, but he should have. He resisted the urge to just kill every one of them and whisk her away. Instead, since she was supposedly a witch in this place, he had her chant a spell to redirect the fire to the bottom of the stake until it broke, then she chanted a spell to put all the people to sleep and slipped the ropes tying her to it. From there he let her own subconscious take over, still watching to see if he would need to intervene again. 

Damon couldn’t help but smile as he subconscious had her running through the woods to the old Salvatore estate that was still standing in the dream and she rushed into his arms and he picked her up and spun her around. It took him a second to realize that he was a vampire in this dream and that made him happier than he could have imagined. It proved once and for all that it wasn’t his old human self that she loved. It was all of him. Vampire and all. He didn’t even notice that she was waking up until the dream abruptly ended and he pulled back as she opened her eyes and startled at the sight of him. 

“Damon?” she asked sleepily. 

“You said I could help with your nightmares,” he defended himself before she could get upset…if she was going to get upset. Her hand instinctively went to her throat where her necklace usually hung and he held it up for her. “I had to take it off to get in.” 

“Oh,” she said with a sigh, before taking his hand and giving him an inviting tug towards the bed. He smiled and climbed in with her, taking her in his arms. “Why the old Salvatore estate? You were never there as a vampire.” 

“Other than when I burned it down,” Damon laughed. “And that part wasn’t me. I just gave you the spell for the fire and the sleeping spell, then let your own mind take over from there.” 

Elena blushed and hid her face in his chest, resolving to get back to the whole him burning his house down issue another time. “You didn’t just have yourself come save me?” 

“I thought about it, but decided against it. You needed to be able to save yourself, not be dependent on someone else to save you,” he told her before reaching his hand to her chin and tilting her up to look at him. “I hope you know though, that I would /always/ save you in the real world. I would never let anything bad happen to you, especially not that.” 

Elena smiled and kissed him. “I know, Damon. And I would always do the same for you. Even if there’s not much I can do for you as a powerless human,” she chuckled. 

“I don’t know. You did save my life once before,” he grinned. 

“That’s true,” she agreed, laying her head back down on his chest. 

“You don’t know how hard it was for me to watch that and not just jump into the dream, slaughter every one of those bastards, and carry you out of there,” he admitted. 

“I can imagine,” she said honestly. “But I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I know. You don’t like unnecessary death. That’s why I didn’t have you kill them all and you just put them to sleep. I didn’t want to make it even more of a nightmare for you.” 

“Thank you, Damon,” she muttered sleepily. 

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked softly. 

“Mhmm,” she hummed in agreement and he smiled and shifted around until he was more comfortable, kissing her head before he closed his eyes. 

The next morning, Elena woke up to Jeremy shaking her shoulder. “What?” she muttered, rolling towards him. 

“You slept through your alarm. You’re gonna be late for school if you don’t get up.” 

“Crap,” she said. “Damon,” she poked him. “You need to wake up.”

“Don’ wanna,” Damon whined, pulling the pillow over his head. 

Jeremy snickered at that. “Dude, you’re how many hundreds of years old?” 

Damon lifted the pillow to glare at him. “I’m only a hundred and seventy thank you very much…” he trailed off before it dawned on him and he looked between Jeremy and Elena who was obviously trying not to laugh too. “Since when does the little Gilbert know?” 

“It’s a long story. I’ll explain after school. For now you need to get up and go before Jenna finds you here,” Elena told him. 

“Yeah, you’re lucky I offered to be the one to wake you up and thank you both very much for being clothed,” Jeremy pointed out. “Does she even know you traded brothers yet?” 

“Can we not put it like that, please?” Damon muttered. 

“How else am I supposed to put it?” Jeremy asked amusedly. 

“Thank you Jeremy,” Elena said warningly. “Tell Jenna I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

As he headed out of the room with a laugh he heard Damon gripe, “New rule. School night sleepovers are at my place from now on so I can go back to sleep.” 

When Elena came down fifteen minutes later, Jenna asked how she slept, as she always did since her nightmares started, but this time Jeremy shot coffee out of his nose at the question. “I didn’t have any nightmares for once,” Elena answered, ignoring Jeremy’s sarcastic mutter of ‘wonder why’ aside from a kick under the table. Jenna just shook her head. She knew she was missing something, but wasn’t that worried about what it was. If it was dangerous Jeremy wouldn’t be so amused, so she figured that Stefan had stayed over or something. She was just glad that Elena and Jeremy seemed to be getting along again after their fight. 

As soon as she got to school, Bonnie cornered her and asked, “Well? You never called me and told me how things went…or IF they went.”

“They went,” Elena chuckled. “Stefan kinda beat me to the punch sort of. I didn’t even get the words out before he guessed that I was going to break up with him. Apparently he picked up on the thing with me and Damon too.”

“Oh ouch. I bet that didn’t go well,” Bonnie said with a wince. 

“Actually, just the opposite. He was very understanding. Said he’d seen it all along and had just been trying to ignore it but he knew it was coming eventually and hoped we were happy together.”

“Just like that?” Bonnie asked skeptically. 

“I think if it had happened differently, he would have felt differently, but after what he did…”

“Yeah, that makes sense. And it probably wouldn’t have happened for a while longer if he hadn’t lost it like that.” 

“That’s what he said too. Said it was his own fault.” 

“So does Damon know how you feel then?” 

“Does Damon know how you feel about what?” Caroline asked as she came up to them. 

“She dumped Stefan for Damon after he stood her up the other night,” Bonnie blurted out. 

“Bonnie!” Elena smacked her. “I did /not/ dump Stefan for Damon. I dumped him because of what he did.” 

“But you’re still going for Damon now,” Caroline guessed. “It’s about time you two figured that one out.”

Elena threw her hands in the air. “Seriously…did /everyone/ know but me?”

“Stefan knew,” Bonnie whispered to Caroline to catch her up. 

“Ooh,” Caroline said eyes going wide. 

“Even Jeremy picked up on it,” Elena said with a sigh. 

Caroline and Bonnie both burst into laughter. “Okay, now that’s bad,” Bonnie managed to say. 

“So…answer the question. Does Damon know how you feel?” Caroline asked eagerly. 

“Yeah,” Elena rolled her eyes. “We’re together now.”

Caroline squealed and hugged her. “Yay! It’s kinda like we traded boyfriends,” she laughed. Elena just hoped she would be as happy for them if Damon’s compulsions ever managed to break.


	22. Chapter 22

After school, Elena headed to the Salvatore house. When she came in she called for Damon, but he didn’t answer so she figured he was out somewhere and just went down to see Stefan. “Hey, how are you?” she asked him when he looked up from his book at her presence. 

“I’m okay,” Stefan told her. 

“Am I good to come in?” she asked, knowing that her finger should be healed enough now, but wanting to make sure. 

Stefan gave a long sniff before nodding. “Yeah. You’re good.” 

She opened the door and went in, sitting on the cot next to him. “It’s gotta be boring stuck in here,” she said sympathetically.

“Damon’s been keeping me good on books,” Stefan told her, raising his current book to show her. 

“That’s good. Do you need anything else?” she asked him. 

“Just this,” Damon said stepping into the doorway with a bottle of blood, looking a little rumpled. “Didn’t manage to catch any squirrels, but got a deer that should keep you fed until you can go track down the little bastards yourself,” he joked. 

Stefan laughed, knowing that squirrels were one of the toughest to catch which was why he preferred them. He liked the challenge. “Thanks Damon.” 

“You’re welcome,” he told him. “I’m gonna go get cleaned up.” 

“I think he’s feeling guilty,” Stefan told her. 

“Why?” she asked curiously. 

“Because he has you now. He feels like he stole you from me while I was at a low point,” Stefan told her. “I told him it was just karma and all and I owed him one, but you know how he is.” 

Elena snorted and rolled her eyes. “I get that. I meant why do you think that?”

“Because he’s never this nice,” Stefan told her. “Normally he’d pop by with a bottle of blood every so often, throw some snarky remarks and leave me to my misery. Even the books are a new one.”

“Makes sense, though I think the books are more because he’s getting over the past and trying to be a decent brother, but the lack of snarky remarks is rather out of character either way,” Elena chuckled. “I’ll try and talk to him.”

“I’d appreciate it. It’s a little too easy for him to avoid the subject with me while I’m stuck in here,” Stefan told her. 

“I can imagine,” she said amusedly. Damon was a master at avoidance in the best of times, but right now he barely even had to try. “But while we’re on the subject…I do want to thank you for taking this so well. I mean…I wouldn’t blame you if you if you were pissed or upset or anything.” 

Stefan shrugged. “Like I said before it’s my own fault this happened, and I owe him this. Not just for everything that happened in the past, but for everything the last few months too. I saw how you two were together and if I was a good brother, I would have bowed out then and let him have his long overdue happiness.” 

“I wasn’t ready for him then,” Elena pointed out.

“You have been since your trip to the past,” Stefan told her. “But I still kept hanging on.”

“That’s understandable,” Elena told him. “I was hanging on too. Because I didn’t want things from so long ago to tear us apart in the present. Because that wouldn’t have been fair to you. But I guess sticking with you when I was falling for someone else wasn’t really fair to either, so I’m sorry.” 

“Neither of us handled this right,” Stefan told her. “I think the only one who actually did, believe it or not, was Damon.” 

“And he’s the one feeling guilty for it,” Elena shook her head at the absurdity. Elena hung out with him for a while longer talking about other subjects before she went upstairs to look for Damon. 

She found him sitting on the couch with a book and a glass of whiskey in his hand, so she went over and sat next to him as he closed his book and set it down. “You could have come down and hung out with us,” she told him. 

Damon shook his head. “I’m trying not to rub his nose in it. At least while he’s locked up.”

Elena couldn’t argue with that, but, “as long as you don’t intend to try and hide it once he’s out.”

“I don’t,” Damon assured her, before laying back and pulling her to him. “I seem to remember being promised a long story about the little Gilbert’s newfound knowledge?” 

Elena rolled her eyes at the deflection, but he did need to hear this story sooner rather than later, so she let him get away with it for the moment. “So here’s the thing…Jeremy is dating Anna and she told him about vampires. Then he read my journal and got the entire story.”

“Oh hell no. I’ll kill her,” Damon said dangerously. 

“Damon, stop,” Elena put a hand on his chest to stop him from getting up. “I promised him to let it go.”

“Well I didn’t promise that,” Damon pointed out. 

“Just listen for a minute, okay?” Damon huffed and nodded. “She told him about everything, including trying to kill me and what she did to Stefan. She apologized and promised that it was in the past and that she was lashing out from grief.” 

“He’s not the only one that deserves an apology,” Damon snarked. 

“I know, and I agree with you. We’ll work that out. But as he pointed out, none of us have any right to be throwing stones here.” 

“So we just take her at her word and let it all go?” Damon asked incredulously. 

“And how many times have we all let things like that go between us? We have all hurt and betrayed each other at one point or another. Even me,” she told him. 

“You have a point,” Damon admitted with a sigh. “But I want to hear an apology directly from her lips before I even consider closing the matter.”

“Fair enough,” Elena agreed. “But you can’t really blame her for being afraid of approaching us without a mediator.” 

“No. I can’t. But now she has one.” 

“And Jeremy and I will see about arranging a conversation between the five of us once Stefan is available.” Damon nodded and relaxed, settling back into their comfortable position. “And on a related note, you need to release the compulsion on Jeremy.”

“Do what?” Damon asked incredulously. 

“He found out about that too from my journal and wants his memories back.”

“You want me to give him back all that pain and suffering? Are you insane?” 

“I don’t like it either, but he made the point that they’re his memories and it should be his choice and it’s not like I would let anyone take my memories away. Hopefully there is enough time and distance from it now that it won’t hit him as hard, but he promised to get help if it does. That was the deal I made with him to get them back.”

“I think it’s a bad idea, but if it’s what you want…”

“It’s what I want,” Elena assured him, smiling at the memory of the night that it was originally done when they had the same exchange. 

“Then I’ll do it,” he promised, kissing her head. 

“Thank you, Damon,” she said happily, snuggling tighter against him. “Now…about us and Stefan…”

Damon groaned. “Do we really have to talk about this?” 

“Yes, we do, Damon. Because I need you to understand that you didn’t do anything wrong here?” Damon scoffed. “You didn’t. I did. Even Stefan did. You’re the only one who did things right.”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be here like this with you right now.” 

“Damon, we can’t help that we fell in love. It’s not something either of us could have prevented and I’m glad. I’m happy. Aren’t you?” 

“Of course, I am,” he said obviously, running a hand through her hair. “That’s the problem.”

“But it’s not a problem, Damon. A problem is something that needs to be fixed and this doesn’t. It just happened. I’m the one who tried to hold onto Stefan even as I was falling for you. He’s the one who tried to hold onto me knowing what was happening. You took a step back. You waited until we were over. You never pushed anything or asked for anything and even went out of your way to help us more than once. You did the right thing, Damon. You have nothing to feel guilty for.” 

“Then why do I?” he asked wearily. 

“Because you see him hurting and us happy and you feel bad about it. But you can feel bad for the situation without feeling guilty.” 

“I’ll try,” he promised. 

“Good. I’m glad,” she smiled, leaning up to kiss him as they moved on to other subjects. After a while when the conversation lapsed, she brought up something else she was curious about. “You said something about burning down your old house?” she asked amusedly. 

Damon laughed. “What did you think happened to it?” 

“I don’t know. Age?...but that’s stupid because there are a lot older houses still standing,” she realized with a chuckle. “Was there a reason or were you just in a mood?” 

“Little of both really,” Damon shrugged as he told her the story that both amused and exasperated her. After the story she told him she needed to go. She really needed to make sure Jenna knew the news before she found out from someone else. She promised to stay over the next night though.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this next chapter ended up being a monster so I had to split it into four chapters lol.

When Elena got home in time for dinner, she Jeremy and Jenna sat down to eat. Jeremy brought up a bombshell partway through the meal though. “Don’t you think that if you’re planning what you’re planning, Jenna should know?” 

“Who’s planning what and what should I know?” Jenna asked suspiciously looking between them. 

“Excuse us a minute,” Elena said with a hard look of betrayal at Jeremy and grabbed his arm, dragging him from the kitchen as Jenna watched with a raised eyebrow. 

“What the hell, Jeremy?” Elena asked angrily. 

“She has a right to know, Elena. Especially if she’s gonna be living with one,” Jeremy told her. 

“It’s too dangerous for her to know,” Elena snapped. 

“It’s too dangerous for her not to,” Jeremy shot back. “With as many close calls as we’ve had she needs to know the dangers. Especially since they’re all centered around you and your boyfriends. That puts both of us in the line of fire.”

“It’s not Damon and Stefan’s fault,” Elena defended them. 

“I’m not saying it is,” Jeremy held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying that this family is the center of the vampire drama, and I know at least part of it is because of what the original Johnathon Gilbert did, but either way, Jenna needs to know what to watch out for.”

“I don’t know, Jer. What if she freaks out and tells people. I mean…the council is already suspicious. If they find out about Damon and Stefan…”

“If she freaks out then you can call Damon to erase her memories or compel her not to tell or something,” Jeremy pointed out. “I’ll even help you hold her here until he gets here to do it.” 

“What is this really about, Jer?” Elena asked, not buying the whole Jenna’s in danger excuse. At least not as the whole reason. 

“Part of it is that I couldn’t take losing anyone else,” Jeremy told her. “But also…you were so intent on me talking to someone before I make such a big decision as turning. You need to too. And I mean someone unbiased.” 

“This is still not a good idea,” Elena argued. 

“You tell her or I will,” Jeremy said firmly. 

Elena sighed heavily. “You’ll really help me and support me if she has to be compelled?” Jeremy nodded. “Fine. But if this blows up in our faces it’s your fault.” 

They headed back to the kitchen and sat back down as Jenna looked at them expectantly. “Are we going to let me in on whatever secret you two seem to have?” 

Elena took a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. What do you know about vampires?” 

Jenna looked confused. “Your mother used to tell me stories about them when I was little, but what does that have to do with anything?” 

“Vampires are real, Aunt Jenna,” Elena said gently. 

Jenna laughed. “Yeah, right. Seriously, what’s going on?” 

“She’s telling the truth,” Jeremy told her. “Damon and Stefan are vampires. And so is Anna.”

Jenna narrowed her eyes at them, trying to wrap her mind around all this. “No. That’s not possible.”

“You can’t tell anyone though, Aunt Jenna. Please. The founder’s council…they know about vampires and they want to kill them all. Even the good ones.” 

“The…good vampires…” Jenna repeated in a daze. “I don’t…this is…you’re really not just pulling my leg?” she asked almost desperately. 

“No. We’re not,” Elena said gently. 

“Then how do…I mean…” Jenna took a few deep breaths to center herself before saying firmly, “Tell me everything. Everything I’ve missed. Everything that, as your guardian, I have a right to know.” 

Elena and Jeremy thought back before Elena said, “I think the first real encounter we had was at the Halloween party at school. Jeremy was attacked by a vampire. I had just found out about Damon and Stefan being vampires, but Jeremy still didn’t know anything about them. Stefan saved him and killed the vampire.”

“And Damon erased my memories of it,” Jeremy said irritated. 

“At my request,” Elena pointed out. 

“Erase his memories? They can do that? And why would you ask Damon instead of Stefan? I thought you hated him then?” Jenna asked curiously, putting the danger to them out of her mind for now. It was the only way she was going to get through this. She could fall apart later. 

“I did. But Stefan doesn’t have the same abilities that Damon does. And yes, they can erase your memories, and even use mind control. That’s what that bracelet I gave you is for. It prevents any vampires from messing with your mind.” 

“That’s why you told me to never take it off,” Jenna realized. 

“Exactly,” Elena nodded. 

“Okay. What else?” Jenna asked, wanting to get the whole thing out of the way. 

“The next one was my car accident. It was a vampire attack. He ran me off the road and then was coming after me while I was trapped in the car, but Damon came and ran him off,” Elena figured she could use this to try and talk Damon up a little bit before the reveal that she was dating him. “He got me out of the car and made sure I was okay, and then when I passed out, he took me with him to Georgia which was where he was headed when he ran across me.”

“He should have taken you to a hospital,” Jenna argued. 

“There was no need,” Elena told her. “He was keeping an eye on me and if I had taken a turn for the worse, he could have just fed me some of his blood to heal me. And he could hear my heartbeat and everything so he knew I was okay.”

“He could hear that? Even while driving?” Jenna asked skeptically. 

“Vampires can hear just about everything. All their senses are heightened. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, even touch,” Elena explained. “He would have been the first to know if I needed help.” 

“Okay,” Jenna sighed, accepting that for now. “But that doesn’t mean he had any right to take you all the way to Georgia without permission.”

“No, you’re right. He didn’t. But it wasn’t malicious. He’s just kind of a spontaneous guy and he thought I could use a little bit of a ‘time-out’ he called it from my problems. A chance to have a little fun.” 

“And did you?” Jenna asked, accepting that. 

“Yeah, actually,” Elena said with a smile. “It was the first time I really let myself have /fun/ since mom and dad. And I think he knew how much the car accident would freak me out after what happened to them, and wanted to get my mind off it, and it worked.”

“Well…that’s good at least,” Jenna told her. “But I still wish you had called…wait…when I called you, you dropped your phone and I didn’t hear from you again for an hour. You told me that you broke your phone and had to have it fixed…”

“That was kinda true,” Elena said sheepishly. “I dropped my phone and broke it because I was grabbed by another vampire when I stepped outside to answer. Damon realized I was missing right away and tore off after me. He almost died saving me. This vampire took a baseball bat to him…you see vampires heal super fast, so he kept breaking Damon’s bones faster than he could heal over and over and then when Damon was down and not getting up, he doused him in gas and was about to set him on fire and kill him. And the whole time Damon was just worried about me,” she exaggerated a bit. “I was screaming and begging him to leave Damon alone and I guess I attracted the wrong kind of attention because then he just took off before he could kill him.” She didn’t know how to explain the actual truth of why he left, so she left it at that. 

“But Damon healed…” Jenna guessed, glad that he had saved her, and once again pushing the danger to the back of her mind. 

“Yeah. He was fine in a couple hours and that’s when we came back,” Elena told her. 

“And when you and Damon became sort of friends,” Jenna realized. “Why do vampires keep coming after you two?” she asked worriedly. “Because you’re friends with some?” 

“No,” Jeremy was the one to jump in there. While he did want to protect his sister’s relationships, he was more worried about Jenna trying to split up him and Anna. “Because our ancestor, the first Johnathon Gilbert, was the one who led the massacre of over a dozen vampires back when the town was first founded.”

“That…makes sense,” Jenna admitted, suddenly glad that there were good vampires around to protect them. “But why now?” 

“Maybe because we’re the first generation of Gilberts without parents on the council that hunts them protecting us,” Elena guessed. 

“Okay. I get that,” Jenna said, still forcing herself to stay calm. “Anything else?” 

“There was the fifties dance,” Elena explained. “There was a vampire that gained access to the house to come after me. He posed as a pizza delivery guy and tricked Jeremy into inviting him in.”

“Wait, so they have to be invited in?” Jenna asked. 

“Yeah. They can’t get into a human home without being invited. But once they’re in once they can always get in,” Jeremy told her. 

“Until the house changes hands anyway,” Elena added. 

“So what happened at the dance?” Jenna asked. 

“Since the vampire was after me, I went to the dance to draw him out which is why both Damon and Stefan came with me and watched me like a hawk.”

“They used you as bait?” Jenna asked horrified. 

“It was the best way. He had free access to the house. If we hadn’t drawn him out, he could have snuck in and killed us all in our sleep at any time,” Elena explained when Jenna nodded wearily, she continued. “So he attacked, Damon and Stefan protected me, interrogated him about any other vampires and then killed him.”


	24. Chapter 24

“Okay. What else?” Jenna asked, hoping against hope that they were almost done. 

“Well…I was kidnapped again by a vampire,” Elena told her, not mentioning Anna since Jeremy was nice enough not to mention Damon turning Vicki. “But she didn’t hurt me and then Stefan fought her and got me out.”

“That’s good,” Jenna said relieved, not noticing the grateful look that Jeremy sent Elena.

“Then Jeremy was kidnapped by the same one,” Elena told her. 

“But I was fine too. Stefan helped me,” Jeremy rushed to say. 

“Yeah. Then she and a bunch of her buddies kidnapped and tortured Stefan for it. Me, Damon, and someone else,” she wasn’t going to throw Ric under the bus without giving him a chance to come clean for himself, “went to get him out.”

“They let you go along?” Jenna asked incredulously. 

“Not exactly,” Elena shrugged. “I refused to stay behind and me and Damon had a big fight over it before he finally agreed that I could drive the getaway car since it would be half a mile away through the woods. I just didn’t listen and went in anyway and Damon ended up saving my life again before yelling at me for being an idiot. Then we got Stefan and he told me to get him out while he distracted the rest of them. Stefan was hurt really bad though and when we were attacked by one on the way back to the car, Stefan almost died saving me and I had to give him some of my blood to help him heal.”

“Was that the only time he had your blood?” Jenna asked suspiciously, hoping that he hadn’t been using Elena for that. 

“Yeah. And I had to force him to take it,” Elena told her. 

“So blood heals them? Did Damon…when he was hurt in Atlanta?” 

“Yes it heals them. Sort of. As long as they’ve got a ‘healthy diet of blood’ as Damon puts it, they keep their speedy healing, so no. Damon didn’t take any of my blood because he hadn’t been starved before that like Stefan had when he was being kept prisoner.” 

“Right. Gotcha. Go on…”

“And that leads us to now. See, Stefan has this thing with human blood. You might call it a disease. Apparently it’s pretty rare in vampires, but human blood is like a drug for him. An extremely addictive drug.”

“Oh no…” Jenna said with wide eyes. “Please tell me he didn’t hurt you.”

“No, no, no. Nothing like that,” Elena assured her. “Neither of them would ever hurt me, no matter the circumstances. But when I fed him my blood it did cause him to fall off the wagon. He got into Damon’s blood stash…”

“His blood stash?” Jenna asked, thinking the worst. 

“Bags of donated blood from blood banks. And then he stole more when he drained that and totally went off the rails. That’s what we were fighting about at the pageant. He’d been lying to me and hiding it and kept swearing that he was in control and fine and refused to get help.”

“Like any addict would,” Jenna said sympathetically.

“Yeah, so when I confronted him, he took off, which is why he stood me up and Damon stepped in. Once that was over we went looking for him…”

“Oh god!” Jenna clapped a hand over her mouth. “Amber was attacked by an animal that night…”

Elena winced. “Yeah. Stefan kinda lost it,” she told her. “Damon managed to stop him and save Amber, but Stefan got away in the chaos. Stefan ended up going home, but he was like a skittish animal. It was really horrible to see. Damon couldn’t get close to him, but I could.”

“Elena! What if he had hurt you?” Jenna scolded. 

“Damon said the same thing,” Elena chuckled. “But I knew he wouldn’t. And Damon was right outside the door and since they can move at super speeds, he could have been there in a split second if Stefan had tried. Damon gave me a vampire tranquilizer dart and as soon as I got close, I stabbed him with it and we locked him up to dry him out.”

“Locked him up where?” Jenna asked. 

“Well,” Elena cringed, knowing how this was going to sound. “They kinda have a dungeon cell in their basement.” Jenna gasped and Elena rushed to clarify. “They don’t use it for humans or anything. Just for each other when one of them is having issues like that and for other vampires that they can’t kill but need to hold for some reason.” 

When Jenna realized that there wasn’t any more, she took a few deep breaths. “So…just to sum up…Damon, Stefan, and Anna are vampires, but they’re good ones and protecting you two from the hordes of vampires after revenge on your family.” 

“Pretty much,” Elena and Jeremy both said together.

“And why tell me this now?” Jenna asked. “If you were going to tell me, I would think it would have been when all this first started. 

“A few reasons. One being we wanted you to know what to be careful of,” Elena explained.

“Like inviting people in the house,” Jeremy added. 

“And not taking off your bracelet,” Elena said. 

“Jeremy said something about you doing something?” Jenna asked Elena suspiciously. 

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Jeremy said getting up and disappearing upstairs, leaving his empty plate on the table. 

Once he was gone, Elena turned to Jenna and said. “There’s more you need to know before we get into that.” 

Jenna sighed heavily, but nodded. She could handle this. “Okay. Hit me.”

“Well first of all, Stefan and I broke up after what happened.”

“I’m sorry, honey, but I can’t say that I’m not a little relieved,” Jenna told her. 

“It’s okay. We’d been having problems for a while.”

“Because of Damon?” Jenna guessed. 

“No. Well sort of, but not really,” Elena told her. “It was a lot of stuff. See right before I was kidnapped the last time, I did something horrible to Damon.”

“What did you do? And did he hurt you for it?” Jenna asked worriedly. 

“No, he didn’t hurt me. He did threaten to, but I deserved it,” Elena said sadly. “See, Damon was trying to protect someone he loved, but Stefan thought it was a bad idea, but he decided to pretend to help him so that he could be in a better position to stop him and I got dragged in too.”

“Oh honey. They shouldn’t have put you in the middle of that,” Jenna said sympathetically. 

“I know,” Elena said with a sigh. “But Damon didn’t realize there was anything to be in the middle of at the time and he was the one who dragged me in. When he started getting suspicious he asked me point blank if he could trust Stefan with this…looked me in the eye and practically begged for the truth…”

“And you said he could,” Jenna nodded understandingly. 

“It was worse than that. I said he could and then I helped Stefan stop it. We were just about to destroy his only chance when he caught us.”

“And that’s when he threatened you?”

“Yeah. He said he would kill me if Stefan didn’t hand it over.”

“And what was ‘it’?”

“A witch’s spell book. The only place the spell that he needed existed,” Elena told her. 

“Witches. They’re real too?” 

“Yeah. They are. But anyway, it was a big mess which is what caused what happened next. At least best as I can figure.” 

“What happened next?” Jenna asked worriedly. 

“The spirits sent my consciousness back in time to share the body of a witch in the eighteen sixties,” Elena said bluntly. 

“The spirits?” Jenna asked confused. 

“The spirits, angels, the powers that be, whatever you want to call them,” Elena shrugged. 

“Why did they do that?” Jenna asked. 

“Well me and Emily…the witch I was riding with…figured out that it was probably because they wanted me to see the truth about Stefan and Damon.”

“Wait…the eighteen sixties?” Jenna breathed out in shock. Her mind hadn’t quite processed the whole vampire immortality part.

“Yeah. Back when they were human. Before they were turned,” Elena told her. 

“And what did you learn?” Jenna asked. 

“A lot,” Elena huffed a laugh. “I’m not even sure where to begin.”

“Start from the beginning then,” Jenna prompted gently. 

“Right. Okay. So I suddenly found myself in her mind while she was meditating and we talked for a bit and figured out what was happening, but before we could get any further, she was called and had to go and I found myself experiencing everything like I was her. Everything she saw, felt, heard and so on, I did too. She was a slave to an evil vampire named Katherine.”

“Katherine? Damon and Stefan’s ex Katherine?” 

“Yeah. She was a real piece of work. But before I tell this story, I need you to promise that it goes no further. I don’t want to hide anything from you, but there is some really personal stuff about Stefan and Damon.” 

“Okay. I promise,” Jenna assured her. She wasn’t going to go around gossiping about them even if she could tell anyone that they were vampires.


	25. Chapter 25

“Okay, so when Emily was pulled out of her meditation, Katherine took her outside to sit with her and ‘amuse’ her. She had been trying to get with Stefan but he kept spurning her advances and that irritated her, so she was looking for new ideas to get him. Since that was the day his brother was coming home on leave, she hoped it would help her somehow.”

“On leave?” 

“Damon was a soldier in the civil war,” Elena explained. “I immediately noticed that he and Stefan were so different from the ones I know. They were open and carefree and happy. And they were super close. Emily told me later that Damon had always doted on Stefan and given him everything he ever wanted. But then Damon met Katherine, and it was painfully obvious that it was love at first sight. Still, he gave Stefan the first shot at her, but when Stefan declined, he took his chance.”

“But I thought she was with both of them,” Jenna asked, having heard that part of the story. 

“I’m getting there,” Elena explained. “So later that night, Katherine all but dragged Damon into her room. He told her that it wouldn’t be proper because they weren’t married and all that, but she kept pushing and they ended up sleeping together.” Jenna’s eyes widened as she realized that Damon must have been a virgin at that point. She had been his first. No wonder it had meant so much to him. “Then she fed on him, but he was so enamored with her, especially after that, that he let her do whatever she wanted and practically thanked her for it.”

“Is that how he became a vampire?” Jenna asked curiously. 

“No. Being bitten doesn’t make you a vampire. You have to drink a vampire’s blood and then die with it in your system. Then you wake up in what they call transition and from there, you can either drink human blood to become a vampire, even if it’s only a drop, or you can not and let yourself die for good,” Elena explained. 

“Oh. Okay,” Jenna said. “So what happened next?” 

“Well, once she was done with him, she basically kicked him out and then waited. I didn’t realize what she was waiting for right then, but she had picked up on what I didn’t. Or maybe didn’t want to see. But anyway, after Damon left, Stefan knocked on her door.” 

“Oh no,” Jenna sighed. 

“Yeah. Now that Damon had her, Stefan was suddenly interested and wasted no time jumping into bed with her, even bragged about having slept with other women before too. He didn’t take her feeding on him so well though and she had to compel him…that’s the mind control I mentioned…not to be afraid of her. And from there she toyed with them both.” 

“That’s awful. Did they know?”

“Yeah. They knew that they were both with her anyway. Not that she was toying with them. It was so hard to watch. Damon was completely head over heels for her and anyone could see how much it hurt him when she was with Stefan, but he allowed it. Because he wanted them to be happy and he wouldn’t deny either of them anything. He didn’t realize that Stefan didn’t really care about her. At least not at that point. When his leave was over, Damon even deserted the army rather than leave her and that was the first time he ever said a word about her and Stefan being together. When she said how much she would miss him, he made a comment about Stefan being enough for her and she played up how much she loved them both which was why he ended up staying.”

“Wow, what a bitch.”

“Tell me about it. Then after he stayed, she turned around and took Stefan to the first founder’s ball, but waited until the last minute to make her choice so Damon was stuck alone. That night was when Stefan first confessed his love for her, though he later said that he didn’t mean it. The next night was the last night they were together. Damon begged her to turn him so that they could be together forever, but only him. She promised not to turn Stefan too and that was enough for Damon. He would be the only one that got her forever so he could live with the rest until then.”

“He should never have had to live with any of it anyway,” Jenna said, feeling a huge well of sympathy for Damon. Stefan too, but mostly Damon.

“I know,” Elena sighed sadly. “So she let him drink her blood and then when he left her room, as usual, Stefan came. He didn’t want to turn. Didn’t want her blood, so she compelled him to drink it anyway.” Jenna gasped and suddenly her sympathy for Stefan skyrocketed too. “Then when she went to feed from Stefan she collapsed. Stefan’s father had gotten suspicious and had dosed him with vervain which, while safe for humans, is poison for vampires. Since it was in his bloodstream, as soon as she started feeding from him, she was caught. This was during the big vampire round-up. When Damon and Stefan tried to save her, they were shot. By their own father. Emily whisked them away to the quarry where there was a half standing safe house.”

“So now they’re turning,” Jenna realized. 

“Yeah. While they were still dead, Katherine showed up to give her last orders to Emily before she disappeared. See Emily, at Damon’s begging, found a way to save the vampires that were rounded up. She created a tomb under the church where they could survive. They would dry up and desiccate until they got more blood, but they would be alive. Katherine ordered Emily to tell them that she was in the tomb and how to open it when the comet came back around.”

“Which is what you were trying to stop Damon from doing,” Jenna figured out with a nod. 

“Yeah, but Damon had promised not to release any of the other vampires. He just wanted Katherine,” she told him. 

“But why would she want him to think that she was in there and go after her if she wasn’t?” Jenna asked confused. 

“Because she was a cruel, heartless bitch,” Elena said harshly. “She thought it would be amusing for them to spent a century and a half pining for her before learning that she left them intentionally.” 

“Oh god,” Jenna said disgustedly. “I wish I could kill her myself.” 

“You and me both,” Elena told her. “But once she gave Emily her instructions, she took off before either of them woke up. Damon woke up first and went straight to the church to try to save her again, but he was too late. When he came back, he was so broken. It hurt to see him like that. Then Stefan woke up and they made a pact that they wouldn’t complete the change. That they would just let themselves die.”

“But they didn’t.”

“No. Stefan went to see their father, apparently to say goodbye, but the man was a fanatic so seeing his son that he just killed suddenly appear, he attacked him as a vampire. Stefan said that he didn’t realize his own strength as he killed him and then fed on him. By the time he got back to the quarry, Damon was almost dead and so weak he could barely move, but when Stefan brought him a girl to feed on, he was horrified, and managed to pull himself to his feet to try and get away. Stefan wouldn’t let him though. He grabbed him and forced the blood down his throat. That’s when their rift really happened. Damon promised him an eternity of misery like what Stefan had forced on him. See, Emily didn’t tell him until after that about Katherine surviving in the tomb. She didn’t want it to affect his decision.”

“How could Stefan do that to his brother?” Jenna asked with revulsion.

“Because he turned his humanity off the second he became a vampire,” Elena told her before explaining what she meant. “Vampires have the ability to turn off their humanity, their emotions. A lot of them don’t, but he did. That incident sickened me so much though. Emily had lectured me about preserving the timeline and all, but right then I didn’t care. If I had any control over her body I would have done anything to stop it.”

“And that’s why you and Stefan started having problems? Because of what he did then?” Jenna asked worriedly, understanding Elena’s position, but hoping that she hadn’t judged him solely on something so far in the past. 

“Yes and no,” Elena said with a shrug. “See, I learned from Emily that vampires can’t change. Their personalities at the time they were turned will always be there. It’s not like how humans grow and evolve and when they bury their feelings it can change them. No matter how much vampires bury their true selves, it’s still there. It’s still the core of who they are.”

“I see,” Jenna said thoughtfully. 

“And that was why Emily was so worried about them being vampires. She told me how Damon always felt things so much deeper than most people. He let his emotions consume him. And being a vampire, along with heightening senses, also heightens emotions. She was afraid for him and how he would deal with losing Katherine with all that. She was worried about Stefan too for a different reason. Stefan always had impulse control issues and she was concerned about how they would manifest. Especially since Stefan always had such a good heart underneath and a bit of a guilt complex.”

“Which explains the whole blood addiction thing,” Jenna nodded. 

“Yeah. And the crushing guilt he always feels after he falls off the wagon,” Elena told her.

“So that’s when you came back?” Jenna asked. “Once you saw all that?” 

“Almost,” Elena said with a wince. “I couldn’t come back until Emily died. Due to preserving the timeline, she had to get herself caught out as a witch and then…then they burned her…”


	26. Chapter 26

“Oh my god…and you…” Tears sprung to Jenna’s eyes. 

“That’s what my nightmares have been about,” Elena told her. “But Damon came up with an idea to help me when he finally found out about them yesterday.” 

“What kind of idea?” Jenna asked, desperately hoping it would work. 

“Well first he wanted to take that memory away from me, but I wouldn’t let him.”

“Why not?” 

“Because no matter how horrible it was, it’s still a part of me. It’s an experience that shapes who I am,” Elena said, getting a sad nod from Jenna. “But part of vampires’ mind control abilities include dreams.”

“So he can just take them away?” Jenna asked hopefully. 

“Not really. I mean, he could, but then he would have to constantly be in my head whenever I’m sleeping for the rest of my life and that’s just not practical or something I’m particularly comfortable with.”

“Right. Yeah. That makes sense,” Jenna said with a wince. She wouldn’t want anyone constantly in her dreams either. 

“But his theory is, if we can change the dreams up for a while, it’ll help. He started last night. He kinda…snuck into my room,” she admitted, but Jenna just waved it off. If ever there was a time to not care about that it was now. “He watched me sleep until he saw me in the nightmare and then he went in and, since I was a witch in the dream, gave me a spell to change the fire’s direction to burn the bottom of the stake and break it and then another spell to make the mob fall asleep so I could escape.”

“I’m surprised that he didn’t just have someone rescue you instead,” Jenna said almost amused. 

“He said that he thought about it, but that would still make me dependent on someone else. The whole point was to empower me to save myself,” she explained. 

“That’s…very wise of him,” Jenna nodded thoughtfully. “And nice of him to help.”

“Yeah…which brings me to my next piece of news,” Elena blushed. 

“You and Damon are together now aren’t you?” Jenna asked knowingly. 

Elena nodded. “I never meant to fall in love with him, but…”

“It’s not something you can control,” Jenna assured her. Yesterday she would have thrown a fit over it being Damon, but she knew better now. “But I do have a few concerns.”

“Okay,” Elena said, waiting for the axe to fall. 

“First…hasn’t he been hung up on Katherine for like ever?”

“Yeah, kinda, but once he learned the truth about her, that fell flat. I’m almost positive that most of it was momentum and misplaced loyalty for most of that time anyway. Either way, he’s definitely over her.”

“Okay. If you’re sure,” Jenna said, hoping that Elena wasn’t going to end up heartbroken over this. “My other concern is Stefan and how he’s gonna handle this.”

“He’s okay with it actually. He figured out a long time ago that Damon and I were drawn to each other and said that he knew that my seeing Damon as a monster was the only chance he ever had with me, so once I knew the truth this was inevitable.” 

“Wait, so Stefan basically lied to you the entire time you were together about both himself and Damon, just so that he could keep you to himself and away from his brother?” Jenna asked distastefully. 

“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking,” Elena told her. “See, Damon really did become something like a monster for a long time and that’s how Stefan saw him. His desire for revenge against Stefan along with his emotional pain made him lash out. It wasn’t until he met me and the kinda…instant connection we had that it started chipping away.”

“But still…if vampires can’t change…”

“That’s not really common knowledge,” Elena told her. “Neither of them realized that until I told them. Emily never really had a chance to explain and since Katherine was out of the picture by the time they turned, they never had any help with all that stuff.”

“That must have been difficult,” Jenna said sympathetically. To be going through that kind of thing completely alone. 

“Yeah. I’m sure it was,” Elena said sadly. 

“But you really think Stefan is okay with you and Damon though?” Jenna asked skeptically. 

“Not really. Not yet anyway. I think he’s putting on a brave face at the moment. I do believe him though when he said that he hopes we’re happy together and that we’re good together. He said that he owed Damon this and that his happiness was long overdue.”

“Well I can’t really disagree with that,” Jenna said with a shrug. “Anything else I should know?” 

“A few little things if you’re up to it. You can take some time to process first if you need to,” Elena offered, surprised at how well Jenna was taking all this, not realizing that inside she was having a total freakout.

“No, I’d rather get it all out now then process it all together,” Jenna told her. 

“Okay. Fair enough. First off, no one is sure why, but I look exactly like Katherine,” Elena told her. 

“Okay that’s…and Stefan and Damon…” Jenna was completely rocked by that. 

“I was worried about the same thing,” Elena assured her. “That’s actually why I took off the night of my car accident when I found a picture of her. But it’s not what you’re thinking. They don’t see me as her in any way. Not even Damon.”

“You’re sure of that?” Jenna asked worriedly and Elena nodded. “Okay. I guess I’ll have to trust your judgement on that one.” She wasn’t so sure about it though. “Anything else?

You know my birth mother, Isobel?” 

“What about her?” Jenna asked, not liking where this seemed to be going. 

“Well she was obsessed with vampires for most of her life and managed to go through intermediaries to get an introduction to Damon who she begged to turn her, so he did.”

“So she’s alive and vampire?” Jenna asked in shock. 

“Yeah. But not one of the good ones according to Damon. He said that she hated it and hated him for doing it and turned off her humanity right off the bat,” she said. 

“Does Ric know?” 

“He does now,” Elena said with a helpless shrug. 

“That’s what Damon was taunting him about at the auction,” Jenna realized, her opinion of Damon taking a bit of a nosedive. 

“Yeah, but in Damon’s defense, Ric was trying to kill him /and/ he was more than a little drunk, still reeling over learning about Katherine’s betrayal. I’ll never forget the horrified look on his face when I yelled at him after that and told him that she was my birth mother. He even came to my room later that night and handed me a stake and stood there letting me do whatever I wanted.”

“You didn’t…” Jenna hoped. 

“No. I threw the stake back at him and told him that he didn’t get to absolve himself so easily. That’s when he told me she wasn’t dead and how he’d turned her at her request and basically begged my forgiveness. Since he didn’t actually do anything wrong other than being cruel enough to taunt Alaric about it, and he’d forgiven me so easily for worse when I betrayed him, I couldn’t really not forgive him, but I did shut him out for a few days after that.”

“Wait…that’s what Jeremy was talking about wasn’t it? What you’re planning to do? You want him to turn you?” Jenna asked almost in a panic.

Elena sighed, knowing that this was necessary now, but still not wanting to deal with it. “Yeah. I do.”

“But…no, Elena. You can’t do something like that just for a guy. Even your mother regretted it.”

“It’s not just for him, Aunt Jenna. It’s for me too. I know a lot more about what I’m getting into than she did. Just because she hated it doesn’t mean I will. Between everything I learned from Emily and all the examples I’ve had of what it’s like…I know what I’m doing and it’s my decision to make.”

“And Damon agreed to this? Even after Isobel?” Jenna asked incredulously. 

“Not easily,” Elena shrugged. “He made me lay out all my reasons, tried to talk me out of it, and even outright refused more than once, but eventually he agreed that if I took some more time to think about it and if I was a hundred percent sure it’s what I wanted, he would let me make the decision.” 

Jenna took a few deep breaths for calm. “I can’t even consider dealing with this right now, but I do want to talk about this some more. Promise me that you won’t do this until we talk about it again.”

“I still have a few weeks before we can do it anyway, so as long as we talk before then, I can promise that,” Elena told her. “Unless I end up in a life or death situation and it’s the only way to save me,” she felt the need to add. 

“Okay. I can live with that,” Jenna agreed after a moment. Elena dying wouldn’t be any better, so it worked. “I just need a few days. I just…I can’t even think right now.”

“I know. I’m sorry Aunt Jenna. I know it’s a lot coming at you all at once. I just need to know though…you’re not planning on telling anyone right?”

“No. I’ll keep your secret,” she promised. She fully believed that they were good vampires, and didn’t want to see them killed for something they couldn’t help. Not to mention the fact that she had been told this in confidence and if she wanted them to keep coming to her with their problems, she couldn’t betray their trust when they did.


	27. Chapter 27

As Elena headed upstairs, Jeremy stopped her. “Thanks for not telling Jenna about the bad stuff Anna did.”

“Thank /you/ for not telling her about the bad stuff Damon did,” Elena returned with a smile as she headed to her room. She stopped short in the doorway with a gasp of, “Damon.” 

“I really hope you know what you’re doing, Elena,” he said nervously from his spot in the window seat. 

“So do I,” Elena said with a nervous smile. “How much did you hear?” 

“All of it,” he told her. Hearing about all that with Katherine…what she was really like, Elena’s thoughts on what he and Stefan were like, how Elena felt about everything, the things that he didn’t know about what had happened back then…it was hard for him. It wasn’t as hard as he’d expected though and that was when he knew that he truly was completely over Katherine. He’d thought so, but it was nice to have the confirmation. What he’d never doubted was that he loved Elena with every fiber of his being, even if he hadn’t been completely over Katherine. 

“Are you…I mean…are we…”

“We’re good, Elena,” Damon said with a tight smile as he got up and walked over to her. “I mean, I don’t really /like/ how much of my personal business you aired, but I get it. As long as it doesn’t get around, I’ll deal.” He reached out and took both her hands in his and pulled her close. “I’ve heard that everyone needs at least one person they can share everything with outside of their significant other, after all.” And if that gave her someone else to try and talk her out of making the biggest mistake of her life than he could live with just about anything. 

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t really mean to. It’s just…once I started talking it all kinda spilled out.” She wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head on his shoulder. 

“No, I get it. It’s been bothering you and it’s not like it’s something you could really talk openly with me or Stefan about. I would feel better if you would let me compel her not to tell anyone though,” Damon said as he kissed her head. 

“Next time we talk, I’ll ask her and see if she’ll agree to that,” Elena promised. 

“Thank you,” Damon said tilting her head up and going for a real kiss. 

She kissed him deeply, tangling her hands in his hair and trying her best not to let things get out of hand. Not here, and especially not with Jenna being so on edge right now. “I was just about to get ready for bed.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. It’s gonna take more than one night to fix your nightmares,” he grinned. 

She huffed a laugh and grabbed her pajamas. “I’ll be right back then,” she told him, heading to the bathroom to change. When she got back and climbed into bed, he sat on the chair next to it. “You’re not gonna lay down with me?” she asked almost hurt. 

“You don’t have nightmares when I do,” Damon pointed out. “And while I certainly wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with you for the rest of your life, it’s still better if we cut out the root of the problem, don’t you think?” 

Elena smiled brightly at his comment about the rest of her life, but couldn’t disagree with the rest of what he said either. “Okay. But make sure you get enough sleep too.” 

“Don’t worry about me. I don’t have school in the morning and can sleep as late as I want,” he chuckled, leaning over for a lingering goodnight kiss. “Go to sleep, Lena.”

“I love you, Damon,” Elena whispered, already closing her eyes. 

“I love you too,” Damon smiled brushing a hand down her cheek as she drifted off. He sat back and pulled out the book he’d brought with him for this purpose. When Elena started twisting and whimpering, he slid her necklace off again and pressed his hand to her cheek, watching her dream and modifying it. He heard the footsteps coming for the door and normally he would have disappeared out the window, but he was busy at the moment and she knew he was doing this anyway. 

Jenna peeked in the room, hearing Elena’s restlessness, and was only a little bit surprised to see Damon sitting next to her bed with his hand on her cheek. He looked up and gave her a sheepish smile, but she just nodded at him and mouthed ‘thank you’, before she shut the door back and headed to bed. She had noticed the ancient looking book sitting upside down on the end of Elena’s bed and guessed that he had been sitting there for a while waiting for her nightmares to start, and she was more than a little grateful. Just imagining what she must have been going through every night made her shudder. 

Once her dream had smoothed out, Damon waffled for a minute about going home, but didn’t want to take the risk of her having more once he was gone, so he just slid into bed next to her and closed his eyes. The aunt didn’t seem to mind him here so maybe she would actually let him sleep in the morning. He could hope at least. 

When Elena slept through her alarm again the next morning, Jenna was the one to go wake her up. When she opened the door she couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Damon was passed out, still wearing his shoes even, on top of the blanket while Elena was half draped over his chest with her head in the crook of his neck. Damon was leaning to the side, almost curled around her with his face buried in her hair. Seeing them like that, she couldn’t deny the fact that they loved each other. Even with the Katherine look-alike issue. If even their subconscious drew them together like that in sleep, it had to be real. 

Jenna wasn’t sure how late Damon had been up, but it had been almost three when she’d woken up to check on them, so he couldn’t have been sleeping long. Still, Elena had to go to school, so she walked over and shook Elena’s shoulder. Elena’s eyes snapped open and when she realized the position they were in, she looked at Jenna apologetically, but Jenna just smiled at her and motioned her to get up. Jenna bit her lip to keep from giggling at the way Damon whined and tried to pull her back when she moved. “Sorry, babe, but I have to get up,” Elena whispered, easing herself out of his arms. 

“Don’ wanna get up,” he muttered as he stole her pillow to cover his face. 

“It’s okay, Damon. Just go back to sleep,” Jenna chuckled. He had stayed up most of the night to help Elena after all. It was the least she could do. She probably would have reacted differently if they hadn’t been fully clothed. Then it would be their own fault if they were too tired to get up, but this was different. 

“Bless you,” Damon slurred and was back asleep the second the words left his mouth.

Elena bit her lip amusedly as she grabbed her clothes and headed to shower and get changed and Jenna followed her out of the room with an entertained shake of her head. “Is he always like that in the mornings?” 

“Only when he hasn’t had enough sleep,” Elena told her. “Otherwise he’s relatively perky.” Jenna raised an eyebrow at her knowledge of his sleeping habits. As far as she knew they’d only been together a couple days. “At least from what I’ve seen. The night after the pageant I climbed into bed with him after a nightmare, which is when he found out about them, and he was chipper when he woke up the next morning, but the two nights he’s been here and up late with my nightmares, he’s been like that,” she explained. 

Jenna nodded in acceptance and left her to get ready while she went down to finish breakfast. By the time Elena got down, Jeremy was up too and breakfast was hitting the table. Once the kids were off to school, Jenna started cleaning up after breakfast and decided to get some housework done. At least what could be done without waking the sleeping vampire upstairs, and that was a thought that she’d never expected to have. As she worked her mind turned everything over that she’d learned. She’d had the freakout before she fell asleep last night so was ready to process now. She was hoping to ask Damon some questions when he woke up, which was part of the reason that she’d let him sleep. Unfortunately, she didn’t get the chance. 

When she realized that he’d left, she couldn’t help but laugh and texted Elena, ‘Tell your boyfriend that we do have a door. The window isn’t the only way in and out’. She got a laughing face emoji back a few minutes later followed by a text letting her know that Elena wouldn’t be home tonight. She didn’t really mind that. She never had with Stefan, so she didn’t with Damon either. As long as she knew, that was. In a way she was glad for a little more processing time before the confrontations that would be forthcoming. It gave her time to replay the whole conversation and come up with more questions and concerns.


	28. Chapter 28

When Elena got to the Salvatore house after school, she didn’t see Damon, so she headed downstairs and found Damon with Stefan. “Hey,” she told them both, standing in the open cell door. 

“Elena!” Damon said happily when he saw her. “We were just discussing whether Stef here was up to coming out.” 

“And the verdict is?” Elena chuckled at Damon’s exuberance. 

“Yeah. I’ll be okay. I mean, I plan to stay in the house the rest of the day just to be sure, but I’ll be back to school and everything tomorrow.”

“Good,” Elena said happily. “I’m glad to hear it. Come on then. Let’s all go hangout.” 

As they headed upstairs, Damon asked Elena, “Are you staying tonight?” 

“I was planning on it,” she told him, hoping he would be good with it since Stefan would be down the hall and able to hear them. She didn’t want to continue walking on eggshells and only part of that was because she was dying to be with Damon again. It had only been two days since they slept together, but it had been the most incredible experience of her life and she desperately wanted it to be repeated. 

“Good,” Damon replied. “Pizza tonight?” he suggested.

“Works for me,” Stefan replied. 

“Elena? Since you’re the only one who actually /needs/ human food, you get veto power,” Damon joked. 

“I’m good with pizza,” she chuckled as they reached the living room and Damon started pouring drinks. Her eyebrows rose when he handed her something other than whiskey. 

“You said you like margaritas,” Damon said with a shrug, getting pulled into a kiss in thanks before they all sat down. Damon and Elena didn’t take their usual position, but didn’t stay separate either. Elena plopped down and put her feet in Damon’s lap while Stefan took the other couch. The three hours before dinner were spent updating Stefan, first on the fact that Jenna and Jeremy knew everything and that Anna wanted to make peace before turning to the more mundane subjects of what he’d missed at school. 

Stefan had time while he was locked up to get used to the idea of Damon and Elena, but seeing them together was a different story. He got through it though and had to admit that, by the time the pizza arrived, he was a lot more comfortable with it than he started out. It helped that they hadn’t been overly demonstrative. There had only been a couple quick stolen kisses between them. It had mostly been leaning on each other, playing with each other’s hands and hair, and playful banter and loving looks. 

He did know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he’d been right when he said they would be good together. He had always been more reserved with Elena, partially due to his issues and partially just because that’s who he was, and he hadn’t realized until now how deeply that had kept Elena in her shell. She was just blossoming with the ever-affectionate touchy-feely Damon and she brought his softness that Stefan hadn’t seen in a century and a half too. It had been that long since he last saw his brother happy and he was determined not to be the one to mess this up for either of them, so he kept his discomfort to himself and just enjoyed being out of that cell for the first time in three days. After dinner, when Damon and Elena disappeared upstairs, Stefan intentionally didn’t listen to what they were doing and just took a walk around the grounds. 

Once they were in Damon’s room, he pulled Elena into a searing kiss that she returned desperately and it didn’t take long at all before their passion was reaching a fever pitch. As they tumbled into the bed, mostly naked already, Elena took the lead this time, straddling Damon as her lips and teeth and tongue trailed every inch of his body and he writhed beneath her. When she sat up to remove her bra, he sat up with her, kissing her neck and shoulders before she captured his lips with hers again and they stayed like that for a few minutes, before Elena pressed him back down, following with him. 

As Elena moved her lips back down his body, this time she didn’t stop, and when she went to pull his boxer briefs off, he lifted his hips with a moan. Elena had been thinking about this all day. Wanting this. She’d tried it before, but hadn’t really enjoyed it much, but that wasn’t with Damon. Damon, who was so responsive to every little touch. Who completely surrendered to his passion and didn’t hold anything back. She thought she could enjoy it with him and she was right. Being able to take him apart like that was a rush and she didn’t think she would ever get enough. 

She shimmied out of her panties while she was sucking him and her hands roamed over his body as he twisted into every caress and kissed anything that got close enough to his mouth, gasping and moaning all the while. He cried out her name as he came down her throat and Elena swallowed as much as she could manage, but still spilled more than she wanted. She slowly licked it up though before sliding back up his body with the same sloppy kisses. Once she reached his lips again, he kissed her desperately, running his hands over every inch of her body that he hadn’t been able to reach before. 

When he had recovered enough for her to feel his erection against her again, she shifted position just enough to get him inside her and they both cried out in pleasure as they moved together in perfect rhythm. When she sat up, he followed her again, taking the opportunity to suck one of her breasts into his mouth as she threw her head back in ecstasy, fully trusting his arm around her back not to let her fall. It wasn’t long before they were laying back again and then he was flipping her over without breaking their rhythm and he drove her to the edge before pushing them both off of it together. 

He stilled over her, resting his head against hers as they caught their breath and shared a dozen quick kisses while they did. When he finally moved, she followed and laid at his side, resting her head on his shoulder. “Have I mentioned how envious I am of the fact that you don’t get all sweaty and gross?” she chuckled. 

Damon laughed and ran a hand through her hair, leaning down to steal a kiss. “Sweaty you may be, but you could never be gross,” he assured her. “But I do have an extra large tub we could take advantage of if your state displeases you,” he said playfully. 

“Mmm. That does sound nice,” she grinned. He gave her a longer kiss before getting up and starting the bath. When they got in she settled between his legs and leaned back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed lovingly over her neck and shoulders. “How come you’ve never asked to feed from me?” Elena asked curiously snuggling down into his arms and wrapping her arms around his. 

“Where did that come from?” Damon asked with a laugh.

“I was just wondering. I mean…I know when you were with Caroline…”

He reached up and put a finger over her lips. “Let me stop you right there, Lena. Caroline was never anything to me but a warm body and a source of blood. You, on the other hand, are everything to me, and I would never want to cheapen that by treating you otherwise.” 

“Did you…never mind,” she stopped herself. 

“Did I what?” Damon coaxed. 

“It’s not important and I shouldn’t have even thought it,” Elena tried to brush it off, kicking herself for it. 

“Come on, baby. Don’t do that. Talk to me,” he said gently. 

Elena sighed and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “I just wondered if you ever felt like that…you know…when Katherine…”

Damon snorted and shook his head. “I didn’t at the time. Then I felt special. Once I was turned though and realized the realities of it…yeah. I did.” 

“But you still wanted her back?” 

“I had convinced myself that I loved her. Despite everything she did, and you were right when you told your aunt that a lot of it was momentum and misplaced loyalty. I fixed my mind on that outcome and wouldn’t let anything deter me.” He took a deep breath, not liking talking about Katherine while he was with Elena like this, but wanting her to understand. “But then I fell in love with you and realized that what I felt for her was nothing compared to the real thing.” 

Elena smiled and turned her head for a kiss. “I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I shouldn’t have brought up Katherine or even Caroline.” 

“It’s okay, Elena,” Damon assured her. “We can talk about anything you want to talk about.” 

She made a mental note to pay attention to his reactions to things. She knew that he would never deny her anything, no matter how uncomfortable it made him and she never wanted to do that to him. She wanted to make him as happy as he made her. She knew that mentioning it wouldn’t do any good though. It was just part of who he was and he couldn’t change that. But she refused to be Katherine and take advantage of it. “Right now I just want to talk about how much I love you,” she grinned, pressing a kiss to his jaw. 

He let out a happy laugh, and held her tighter, turning his face against hers. “Mmm. Do go on.”


	29. Chapter 29

The next morning, it dawned on Elena that all her clothes here were in Stefan’s room still, and she definitely didn’t want to go in there to get them, so she decided to rummage through Damon’s closet for something to wear, choosing a black button-up and putting her jeans from yesterday back on. She knew that Damon wouldn’t mind her swiping a shirt. When she went downstairs to grab some toast and coffee, she found Stefan already sitting at the table with his own cup of coffee. He snorted amusedly at the sight of her before saying, “Sorry. I didn’t even think to get your clothes packed up to move over. You’re welcome to go grab something from my room and we can take care of it this afternoon.”

“Nah, I’m good for today,” Elena told him. She kinda liked wearing Damon’s shirt. It said something about their relationship, not to mention it smelled like him. “We can take care of it this afternoon.”

The rest of the time pass companionably and Stefan offered to drive them both to school, assuming she was coming back after school and she accepted. During the day, they talked to Jeremy and worked out for him and Anna to come by the boarding house after school for their making peace talk, now that Stefan was free. Elena texted Damon at lunch to let him know once Jeremy got the confirmation from Anna that she would be there. Jeremy also confirmed with Elena that Damon was still going to remove the compulsion Friday night. It was the first Stefan had heard about it so Elena had to explain that whole part of the conversation. 

Everyone was surprised that Stefan and Elena were still so friendly, though only Caroline was blunt enough to comment on it in their hearing. Word had gotten around that Elena was with Stefan’s brother now, so people were understandably baffled by the whole thing. More than a few rumors were started about the three of them being together, but they were quickly shot down by both Elena and Stefan. 

When they got back to the boarding house, Damon pulled her into a quick kiss, mindful of Stefan’s presence, and grinned at the sight of her in his shirt. Stefan decided to give them a few minutes and headed up to get her clothes packed up and set the box on Damon’s bed before heading back down by the time Anna and Jeremy got there. Stefan joined Elena and Damon on one couch, with the brothers flanking her while Jeremy and Anna sat across from them. 

It was a rather tense conversation, but they managed to reach an understanding to stay out of each other’s hair. Damon warned Anna about feeding in town given the council being on alert at the moment and she easily agreed not to give them any cause to be suspicious. Both Damon and Stefan warned her against hurting Jeremy, promising horrible retribution if she did, making Jeremy roll his eyes. He knew that they only cared about him because of Elena. Apologies were given and accepted, and they even all had a cordial dinner together. They couldn’t be called friends yet, if they ever would be, but it was the best outcome that could have been expected in the circumstances. 

Once again, Damon and Elena disappeared upstairs after dinner and neither were seen again until morning. This time Elena drove herself to school, planning to go home after. She needed to catch up on some homework and maybe even have the conversation with Jenna if she’d finished processing. When she got home, she realized that, yes, it was time for that conversation as Jenna motioned her over to sit down on the couch. “Okay, before we get to the whole you turning part of the conversation, I have some more questions.”

“Okay. I’ll answer anything I can,” Elena assured her. 

Jenna was glad for that. If nothing else, it would reassure her that Elena knew what she was getting into if she could answer all her many questions about vampires in general. “Okay. You mentioned a few times about mind control things? How does that work? And has it been done to you or me?” 

“They can manipulate human minds. Change or erase memories, mess with dreams, even feelings to some degree. No it hasn’t been done to you that I’m aware. Definitely not by Stefan or Damon. Damon did compel me once to forget our first meeting. It was the night of the accident and I had walked away from the party upset and ran into him by the side of the road. It was a really nice conversation. I got the memory back when my consciousness transferred bodies. Apparently it broke the compulsion. 

“Why did he make you forget it then if it was a nice memory?” Jenna asked confused. 

Elena snorted amusedly. “Because he’s Damon,” she rolled her eyes. “That connection we had that I mentioned…it flared big time during that meeting and scared the crap out of him so he got rid of it and made sure to be a bit of an ass around me, but never to me, once we met again.”

Jenna couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was such a typical guy thing to do. “But that’s the only time? Are you sure he wouldn’t do it again? Or that he hasn’t? You said he can manipulate feelings too…” she had to be sure. 

“I’m positive,” Elena assured her. “He’s even had plenty of chances and hasn’t done it. He knows how I feel about compulsions now and would never without my permission. And definitely not to my feelings.”

“But how can you be sure?” Jenna asked. She would be a wreck if it were her. Always wondering what was real and what wasn’t. 

“When he took me to Atlanta, I had left my necklace behind. He had every chance to compel me, especially when I was yelling at him and refusing to play along, but he didn’t. Later on, after the betrayal, when I tried to fix things, I asked him why he didn’t compel me in Atlanta before I intentionally took my necklace off and told him to compel me when he didn’t believe that I was being sincere about helping that time. He just picked the necklace up and put it back on me and said that he didn’t compel me in Atlanta because he wanted it to be real. And he didn’t say it, but I could tell that he didn’t compel me then because he wanted the trust between us to be real too.”

Jenna nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that makes sense. I mean, for people who can control other people’s minds, things being real would be rather important to them.” She could see why Elena would trust them with that. “What other kind of abilities do they have?”

“Well I mentioned the increases senses and emotions. They can also move super fast and are really strong. They heal almost immediately from most things as long as they have plenty of blood in their system. Their blood can also heal any injury and a lot of illnesses too, but not everything.”

“What can’t it heal?” Jenna asked. 

“Genetic stuff mostly. It can’t change a person’s dna. Plus, like if you’ve hand an amputation or something and it’s already healed over the blood won’t regrow anything. Theoretically it would if it hasn’t healed yet, but I don’t know that it’s ever been done before, so I don’t know for sure.”

“What about their weaknesses? You mentioned something about ver…something.” 

“Vervain. It’s an herb that is poison to them. It burns on contact with their skin and tears their throat up if they drink it. If it’s injected into their bloodstream it knocks them out. Anyone wearing vervain, like my necklace and yours and Jeremy’s bracelets are immune to their compulsions. Another weakness they have is wood. If wood comes into contact with their bloodstream they can’t heal until it’s removed. Even if it’s just a splinter. If wood pierces their heart it kills them.”

“And if their sense of touch is enhanced, does that mean they feel more pain too?” Jenna asked. 

“Yeah. But it’s also offset by their quick healing with most things. Even vervain as long as it’s not injected, they heal pretty quick from.”

“I can see that,” Jenna admitted. She had been hoping to use the increased pain as an argument against Elena turning, but she would have to table that one. “And what was it you said happened to those vampires in the tomb?”

“Desiccation is what would have happened if they hadn’t been killed first. Whenever a vampire starves for blood long enough their body starts to whither away and they become completely paralyzed. It’s supposed to be immensely painful and once they reach full desiccation they can’t even swallow so have to be fed blood to be released.”

“But if Stefan can’t drink blood then how…” Jenna asked confused.


	30. Chapter 30

“He can’t drink human blood. He drinks animal blood instead. Apparently, it’s really disgusting though. It took Stefan a while before he could even keep it down once he started the first time.”

“Jeremy mentioned that Stefan was back at school? He’s okay now?” 

“Yeah. We just had to keep him locked up until all the human blood was out of his system and he was re-accustomed to the animal blood. He feels horrible about what he did and almost tried to let himself desiccate but we managed to talk him out of it.” 

“Okay, but tell me more about this turning off humanity thing you mentioned,” Jenna asked. 

“It’s kinda like a switch that vampires have that they can turn off and on. Once it’s off though, you don’t care about anything, even turning it back on. I don’t think there has ever been a vampire that turned it back on without being pushed into it by someone else and that’s really hard to do.”

“So it’s possible to get your mother’s humanity back on?” 

“She’s one of those difficult cases. From what Damon says, she turned it off because she hates what she is. That means that even if we do get her to turn it back on again, she’ll just turn it right back off. Usually vampires turn it off from grief or guilt or something which is possible to come back from and work through with time.” 

“I know you said Stefan turned his off at least once. Has Damon?” 

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked. If he did it was something horribly traumatic and I wouldn’t want to bring it up. Same reason I haven’t asked Stefan about the times he turned his off. I know it was more than once though from little things that have come up in conversation, but that’s all I know about that.”

“That’s fair,” Jenna agreed. She understood the important parts so their personal experiences with it weren’t that big of a deal. “So lets get back to this whole you wanting to turn thing. You said Damon made you lay out all your reasons. I want to hear them too.” 

Elena sighed, knowing that this was necessary if she wanted Jenna’s support. Some of them she was definitely going to downplay though. “You know I want to be a writer, but I have so many ideas of things to write that I could never get to them all even if I never did anything but write, and then I would miss out on so much. There are so many books to read. So many places to go. Things to experience. So much history left to unfold. I want a chance to do it all. See it all.”

“I can see that, but if you have forever then time loses all meaning. I mean, if you never have to worry about dying than how can anything matter?” Jenna pointed out. 

“Being a vampire doesn’t mean that you don’t have to worry about dying,” Elena told her. “Vampires actually have a comparable mortality rate to humans. Otherwise there would be a lot more vampires in the world.”

“Then how…” Jenna trailed off confusedly. 

“Vampires are part of the supernatural world which has a lot more dangers. It doesn’t often spill over into the human world, but among each other…not only are there human vampire hunters, though they’re usually pretty easy to avoid unless you’re an idiot, but there’s also witches who generally hate vampires. They’re like mortal enemies, though there are exceptions to that. Then there’s other vampires, century old grudges that pop up, fights over territory, stuff like that.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very pleasant life,” Jenna pointed out. 

“It has it’s downsides, but it has it’s upsides too,” Elena told her. “As long as you can avoid getting killed, which isn’t really as hard as it might seem, the living forever thing is good. Then there’s the freedom. To be able to go anywhere, do anything, you can be crazy and reckless and have fun. There are no rules, no responsibilities. There’s excitement, adventure, and even the danger spices things up.”

Jenna sighed. “You’re young Elena and I know you want those things now, but someday you’ll want the opposite. Stability. Comfort. Things you can depend on.” 

“Not if I turn I won’t,” she told her. “Vampires can’t change remember? I love who I am now. I love how I feel. The life I could live. That won’t change.”

“You’ll be stunting yourself. You’ll miss out on so much,” Jenna said sadly. 

“That’s what Damon said, and I get that. Really I do. But I’ll also have so much. Everything in life is a decision, Aunt Jenna. No matter what decision you make you’re always giving up something. It’s about deciding if what you’re getting is worth what you’re giving up.” 

“But do you even understand what it is you’re giving up?” 

“Yeah. I do,” she said. “But so much of it I can get back in other ways. Like I could always adopt kids if that’s something I decide I want badly enough. Or with a career in writing, I can just change my pen name every so often and keep writing. Or pick up new careers as they interest me. I just won’t be able to keep them for more than a few decades before people notice I’m not aging, but really how many people keep the same job for more than a few decades anyway?” 

“So you won’t be able to have kids as a vampire?” Jenna asked, having picked up on that.

“No. Vampires can’t procreate,” she told her, mentally smothering Damon’s comment of ‘but they love to try’. “But like I said, adoption is always an option.” 

“And where exactly does Damon fit into this decision? I might buy that he’s not the only reason, or even most of the reason, but I know he factors in somehow.”

“I love him Aunt Jenna. I love him with a passion that consumes me and I never want to lose that. I don’t want to ‘outgrow’ him someday as I change and he doesn’t. Plus…something Emily said when we were talking about him being a vampire…she said that he could have a good life that way if only he wasn’t alone. If he had someone to share it with. Someone to love. I can be that someone for him. I /want/ to be that someone for him. And I want him to be that someone for me. But I would never make such an important and permanent decision just for that.”

“And what if you end up with this same ‘disease’ that Stefan has? Or even if you don’t…you’ll still have to drink blood for the rest of your life? Can you handle that?” 

“Yeah. I can. It’s not that big of a deal. Drinking blood doesn’t mean I have to hurt people. That’s why Damon wouldn’t agree to turn me until school break. So we can go away for a while and he can teach me how to exist around humans without hurting them. So I can get the initial bloodlust under control in a safe environment with his help. He knows that I would never want to hurt anyone.”

Jenna sighed heavily. “Well it seems like you’ve thought everything out at least. I want it on record though, that I completely disagree with you. I think that this is a mistake. But you’re nearly an adult now, and it’s your mistake to make.”

Elena swallowed heavily, feeling the tears spring to her eyes at the implication. “If you want me to move out…I understand.”

“What?” Jenna’s eyes snapped up to her and she reached over and took Elena’s hand. “No, honey. That’s not what I’m saying. You’re still my niece. My family. Human or vampire that won’t change and I’ll still love you just the same. Just because I disagree with your decisions doesn’t make me love you any less.” 

Elena gave a relieved sigh and let Jenna pull her into a hug. “Thank you, Aunt Jenna.” 

“Still…don’t take this the wrong way…but I would rather you stay with Damon until you’re sure that you have your…bloodlust you called it?...under control. Just for safeties sake.”

“I know,” Elena nodded. “And I would never put you or Jeremy at risk if I wasn’t sure. Damon said it shouldn’t take more than a few days for me to level off though, so we should be good.”

“Okay. I’ll trust your judgement on when you’re ready. I just had to put that out there and make sure you know that it’s not a rejection of you. It’s as much for you as anything because I know how badly it would hurt you if you accidentally hurt one of us,” Jenna told her. 

“It really would,” Elena nodded. “Which is why I won’t take any chances.” 

“Then that’s good enough for me. I still wish you would reconsider though,” Jenna told her.


	31. Chapter 31

Now that the conversation was over with Jenna, Elena went upstairs to start on her homework. She didn’t realize that Jenna had confronted Alaric about knowing the truth until he joined them for dinner and the subject came up, but she was glad that everything was in the open and she didn’t have to try and remember who knew what about who. Anna also joined them for dinner with Jeremy, and aside from a few nervous looks between the vampire and the vampire hunter, it seemed to go well. 

Elena managed to get mostly caught up with her homework before she went to bed. At least everything that was due this week. Ric was nice enough to give her an extension with all the drama and revelations going on so that helped, and in return she gave him an idea for next week that made him laugh and immediately agree. If nothing else, it would be fun to put Damon on the spot like that. Elena was a little surprised that Damon wasn’t there when she was going to bed, but she had asked him to give her the day. She assumed he would show up sometime after she fell asleep to help with her dreams. 

She assumed correctly. Damon popped in her window about an hour after she fell asleep and settled next to her bed to watch. After fixing the dream again about halfway through the night, he plopped into her bed next to her as was becoming habit. This time she didn’t end up sleeping through her alarm, though as usual, Damon woke up with a whine when she tried to get away. She gave him a quick kiss and told him to go back to sleep and he did. She let Jenna know that he was still sleeping up there when she got down and when Alaric joined them for breakfast right after, she sent Jenna a teasing look, getting a playful shove in the process. 

Since it was Friday, Damon met Elena at her house after school. Other than him it was just the family and he planned to leave once he released the compulsion to give them time to deal with it. Once Jeremy got home, Jenna and Elena sat on either side of him as Damon sat on the coffee table. Jeremy had to take off his bracelet and then Damon looking deep into his eyes and said, “Remember.’ Jeremy froze for a minute as the memory flooded back into his mind and Damon took that opportunity to give Elena a quick kiss and make his escape. 

Once the memory had settled back into his mind, along with all the pain and suffering that Damon had taken away, Jeremy leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more than to escape upstairs and lock himself in his room for the rest of the night, but the promise he had made Elena stopped him. He sat there and talked about with Jenna and Elena for a while before dinner, after which he made his escape upstairs. 

“You think he’ll be okay?” Jenna asked worriedly. 

“I think he will. There’s enough distance from it now that he’ll be able to deal better. At least I hope so,” Elena said sadly, looking worriedly towards the stairs.

“I hope so too,” Jenna said with a sad smile. “I don’t necessarily think it was the best way to handle it, but I get why you did what you did. Or should I say asked Damon to do it.” 

“I just wanted him to stop hurting. And I wanted to keep him away from all the vampire stuff for his safety. If I’d known he’d end up dragged into it anyway just for being a Gilbert, I might have done it differently.”

“Your heart was in the right place,” Jenna told her. “And that’s what matters.”

The next morning was Saturday so Elena didn’t need to be up early and she and Damon slept in. Since Damon was up most of the night, Elena was still up first though, and when she went downstairs it was to the grave faces of Jenna and Ric. “Uh-oh. What’s going on?” she asked. 

When she was filled in, she sighed and went back upstairs. “Damon?” she said as shook him. 

“Hmm?” he muttered sleepily. 

“We have a bit of a vampire emergency,” she said gently. 

That got Damon moving. He sat straight up and looked at her worriedly. “What happened? Are you okay? Is everyone else okay?” 

“We’re all fine for now,” Elena told him. “Why don’t you come downstairs and we’ll explain.”

Damon got up and followed her down. “Do I have time to grab some coffee or is it something we need to move on this second?” he asked as he entered the living room. 

“You can grab some coffee,” Jenna said with a slight smile. She would have been more amused if the situation weren’t so serious. “There’s still some in the pot.” 

When Damon got back a minute later with a cup of coffee, he said, “Okay. What’s up?” 

“I saw Isobel last night,” Ric told him.

“Isobel’s here?” Ric nodded. “In town?” After realizing how completely useless Ric was in getting information, he finally asked a question he could answer. “What does she want?”

“She wants to see me, Damon,” Elena said nervously.

“I’m supposed to arrange a meeting,” Ric told them. 

“You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to,” he told Elena seriously as he took her hand. 

“I don’t really have a choice,” Elena said worriedly, more than a little touched that he was so concerned with what she wanted. 

“She’s threatening to go on a killing spree,” Ric told him.

“Oh,” Damon said considering for a moment. “I take it that’s…/not/ okay with you guys?” he half-joked.

“I wanna do it,” Elena spoke up before anything else could be said. “I want to meet her. If I don’t, I know I’ll regret it.”

“Then I’ll be right there with you,” Damon said firmly. 

“You can’t,” Elena told him. “You and Ric have both been banned from the building.”

“Then I’ll be there,” Jenna told her. 

“No,” they all said at once. Damon was the one to add to that. “If Isobel tries something, you won’t be able to do anything about it. At best you’ll end up a hostage used to get to her.” 

“Well she can’t go in there alone,” Jenna protested. 

“And she won’t,” Damon said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Hey Stef. Sorry to wake you. Confab at the Gilbert house ASAP.”

“What about Anna?” Jeremy made his first foray into the conversation. 

“I don’t know,” Damon said nervously. “I’m not entirely sure that I trust her yet.” 

“I get that,” Jeremy admitted “But if Isobel does try something, two vampires are better than one right? She won’t let anyone hurt Elena for the same reason you won’t let anyone hurt me.” 

Damon sighed and nodded, unable to really disagree with that, so Jeremy pulled out his phone and called her. She and Stefan got there about the same time and both quickly agreed to watch Elena’s back. “And Ric and I will be right outside. We may not be able to go in, but that doesn’t mean we have to stay away,” Damon assured Elena. 

“Thank you guys. Really,” Elena told them all. “So when do we do this?” 

“Lunch at the grill,” Ric told them. “Noon.” 

“Which means Anna and I will be there by eleven thirty,” Stefan said looking to Anna who nodded. “I’ll take the front corner, you cover from the pool tables. Elena, make sure you sit in the middle.”

“You really think she’ll try anything that publicly?” Elena asked. 

“Probably not. Even without her humanity she’s not stupid,” Damon said. “But getting you alone, like the bathroom or something, or even threatening someone to get you to leave with her…”

“Damon’s right. Don’t let your guard down just because you’re in public,” Ric warned her. “That woman I saw last night…she bore no resemblance to the woman I married. There’s no human left in her. She’s capable of anything.” 

“I know,” Elena told them both. “I know what vampires are like without their humanity and I’ll be careful. But I’ll also do what I have to do to keep people safe, so I’m glad that you’ll all be watching my back.”

“No one will ever hurt you, Elena,” Damon said, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “Not while I’m around. Not even your mother.” 

Elena sighed and leaned into his touch. “Thank you, Damon.” 

There was a bit more planning done for contingencies before Stefan and Anna headed out to be in place when the time came. Damon and Ric drove Elena and waited outside, and Damon stayed ready to speed around the back in case it was needed, but from the front at least he could see in the windows and then the wait was on.


	32. Chapter 32

The meeting went well-ish. No one died, so that was a plus, but Elena took it pretty hard. Even knowing what to expect. When she wouldn’t talk to Damon, he went out to find Isobel. He found her easily. He had taught her all her tricks after all. He kept busy with her little minion for a while waiting for her to get home and then toyed with her long enough to get all the information he could before getting to the point of the visit. He pinned her to the floor by her neck. “Now that I have your attention, listen up. You do not come into my town and threaten the people I care about. Going after Elena? BAD move. You leave her alone or I will rip you to bits because I do believe in killing the messenger. You know why?” He leaned down and whispered menacingly. “Because it sends a message.” She tried to sit up but he slammed her back down. “Katherine wants something from me? You tell that little bitch to come get it herself.”

When he got back, Elena had a plan and she dragged them all over to the boarding house. Jenna and Jeremy insisted on going along, not wanting to be left out of the loop. Anna went along because she had the device, having taken it from her mother’s corpse. They ended up having to take two cars. Elena didn’t want to explain until they got there, so Damon was surprised to find Bonnie waiting on the steps for them. Jenna took a minute to look around in awe, having never been here before, but once they were all sitting and Damon was pouring drinks for all the adults, Jenna turned her attention to Elena who explained the plan. 

“Is there a reason we couldn’t do this at home?” Jenna asked curiously. If Bonnie just needed to do a little spell, there wasn’t really any reason to drive all the way out here. 

“There isn’t really a big enough open space at your house to do this safely and you have too many close neighbors anyway. Magic tends to be a little flashy,” Damon chuckled. “But are you sure you can do this? I mean…no offense, but you’re no Emily Bennett.”

“Doing the original spell, I don’t know if I could pull off,” Bonnie admitted. She and Damon had been getting along a lot better after Elena had told her about the trip to the past. “But de-spelling it is simple enough. Since she’s my ancestor, our magic is compatible.” 

“And either way, it doesn’t hurt to try,” Elena pointed out. “Bonnie will be able to tell if the magic is still in it once she’s done, and if it is we’ll figure it out.” 

“I might even be able to talk Grams into helping if you guys can stall for a while. She won’t be home until tomorrow,” Bonnie told them. 

“Okay. We’ll give it a shot,” Damon agreed and Anna handed over the device. 

Jenna and Jeremy, having never seen any magic before jumped and gasped when the candles and the fireplace flared and the wind started whipping around the room. They could see now why they wanted to come here to do it. When the device fell back to the table, and Bonnie doubled over, out of breath she shook her head. “I couldn’t do it,” she said forlornly, wiping the blood from her nose. 

“Then we’ll stall,” Damon said with a nod. 

“It’s okay, Bonnie,” Elena assured her. “Emily was older than you so it makes sense she was stronger. You’re still learning.” 

“Do you mind if I take this home so Grams can do it?” Bonnie asked the vampires. “There’s no way she’ll even consider walking into a vampire’s home for anything. Much less to help them.” 

“You can take the piece with the spell on it. The rest stays here,” Damon agreed, seeing her point. The spelled piece still needed the rest of it to work anyway.

“Okay. That’s fair. Thank you for trusting me,” Bonnie told him. “I know how hard it is for you.”

“You’re the only witch I trust,” Damon chuckled. “Which is why I hope you’ll check your grandmother’s work this time?” 

“I will,” Bonnie said with a sad smile. “And I really didn’t know she was going to try to trap you before.”

“I know,” Damon said with a nod. “We’re good on that.” 

“I’ll call you guys tomorrow and let you know when it’s done,” Bonnie told them, taking the grimoire and heading out. 

Once she was gone Damon huffed and headed back to the living room. “Well that was a bust.”

“At least Grams might still be able to help so it wasn’t a complete bust,” Elena said gently sitting next to him and laying her legs across his lap. 

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Stefan said wryly. “Removing a spell that incapacitates vampires? It’s not something she’d be likely to go for.” 

“I know you said that witches and vampires are mortal enemies, but Bonnie seems okay with you. Can’t you get her grandmother on your side too?” Jenna asked. 

“Sheila is very set in her ways,” Stefan told her. “She only tolerates me because I saved Bonnie’s life and she was still willing to let me die when I got caught in her trap with Damon.”

“You’d think spending the last century and a half being the Bennett guardian angel would earn me a little leeway,” Damon huffed. 

“Well she didn’t know that then,” Elena pointed out. “She does now, so maybe she’ll help.”

“Bennett guardian angel?” Jeremy asked confused. 

“I promised Emily to protect her descendants if she found a way to save Katherine,” Damon explained. “You don’t break a promise to a witch. Even after they’re dead.”

“I wish I had thought of that for my mother,” Anna said sadly and Jeremy wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Elena said gently. “It was Katherine’s. Your mother was her best friend. She could have saved her too. She chose not to. Emily’s solution didn’t save Katherine. She saved herself and let everyone else rot. Including your mother.”

“You know, the more I hear about this Katherine, the more I hate her,” Jenna couldn’t help but say. 

“Join the club,” Damon told her. “I’d drive a stake through her heart on the spot if I had the chance.” 

“We all would,” Stefan agreed, getting a nod from a still sad Anna.

“Well I have plenty of stakes if you need them,” Ric joked, trying to lighten the mood. 

They all stayed for dinner, cooked by Stefan, before everyone but the Salvatores and Elena left. The next morning, Elena shook Damon awake the second she checked her phone and showed him the picture she was sent of Jeremy beaten up and the message ‘the device for your brother. You have until midnight’.

“Damnit!” Damon cursed, throwing a book at the wall which brought Stefan running and he wasn’t much better when he saw the picture. 

“I need to call Jenna,” Elena said having trouble breathing. 

“Okay. Stef and I will go see if we can’t track her down,” Damon promised. 

“And we should get Anna too. Three of us can cover more ground,” Stefan suggested and Damon nodded. 

They were gone before Elena could blink and she called Jenna. “Elena? What’s wrong?” Jenna answered worriedly. If she was calling this early in the morning it couldn’t be good. 

“Isobel has Jeremy,” she told her. 

“No,” Jenna gasped, running up the stairs and looking in Jeremy’s room seeing his bed empty. “How?” 

“I don’t know. Damon and Stefan are out looking for her, and they’re gonna get Anna to help too. Are you sure you didn’t invite her into the house at any point?” 

“No. I’ve been very careful about who I invite in since you told me about vampires,” Jenna told her. 

“Which means she either had a human grab him or she got him out of the house somehow,” Elena said with a sigh.

“Come home please?” Jenna asked hopefully. 

“I will. I’ll be on my way in a few minutes,” she promised. Elena sent a quick text to Damon to let him know where she’d be. She didn’t want to worry him with Isobel on a kidnapping streak if she wasn’t where he thought she would be. 

When she got home, Ric was already there, comforting a crying Jenna and Elena went to her other side. They spent the next four hours trying to keep it together, even turning on the tv to get their minds off of it, but it ended up being just background noise. When noon rolled around and they hadn’t heard anything yet, Elena called Bonnie, hoping that her grandmother was home. She wasn’t, but shouldn’t be much longer according to Bonnie who promised to call the second she had news. If there was anything good about this, the fact that it would help save a human boy would be more likely to get her to help.


	33. Chapter 33

It was almost two when the three vampires rushed into the house at vamp speed, startling Jenna who hadn’t seen it before. “Anything?” Elena asked hopefully, despite the fact that Jeremy wasn’t with them. 

“No. I’m sorry Elena. We searched every building in town that we had access to, starting with the place I found her last time.”

“What does that mean?” Jenna asked worriedly. 

“It means that she’s either not in town at all or she’s compelled a human and taken over their house,” Stefan explained. 

“Then I’ll get you in. Just like I did last time,” Ric said confidently. “I mean…I hate that an innocent human has to die, but this is Jeremy we’re talking about.”

“Wait, what? Who has to die and why?” Jenna asked appalled. 

“If she’s compelled a human to take over the house, that means that she’s compelled them not to let any vampires in. The only way for us to get in with that situation is for the owner of the house to die,” Damon explained. 

“And you’ve done this before?” 

“When Stefan was taken,” Ric admitted. “I didn’t know when I pushed her outside to Damon that she had to die though. I thought Damon was just going to override the compulsion with his own.”

“But that’s not possible. Once a human has been compelled by a vampire, no other vampire can override that compulsion,” Damon told her. 

“So you just killed her?” Jenna asked disgusted. 

“It was her or my brother and then Elena too when she decided to be suicidal and go in there. What would you do?” Damon asked unconcernedly. Anna was being rather pointedly quiet during this conversation.

“I…um…” Jenna stammered, not really sure how to answer that. 

“Either way, it’s not an option,” Stefan said, desperate to change the subject. “Just because we don’t know where she is.”

“He’s right,” Damon said with a shrug. “It’s not like we can go around knocking on every door in town and asking if they have any vampires at home.”

“So we do nothing?” Jenna asked incredulously. 

“All we can do is hope that Bonnie’s grandmother comes through with the spell,” Stefan told her. 

“Or we give it to her with the spell intact,” Ric suggested. 

“If it comes to that,” Damon agreed. “But let’s all hope it doesn’t.” 

“No. We can’t. We have to find another way,” Elena shook her head. “I’m not trading all your lives for Jeremy’s.”

“So you would trade his for ours?” Anna asked stubbornly, completely agreeing with Damon.

“No. I’m not trading anyone’s life. We’ll find a way,” Elena argued. 

“Let’s just wait and see what Bonnie’s grandmother has to say before we start discussing worst case scenarios,” Ric was the voice of reason. “We have until midnight she said.”

Everyone reluctantly agreed to that and they all sat around watching Elena’s phone like a hawk for the next hour before it rang. Elena grabbed it and answered immediately. “Bonnie?” 

“She’ll help. We’re gonna start taking the spell down now. It should be good by the time someone gets here to pick it up.” Stefan was out the door almost before she was done talking.

“Thank you, Bonnie,” Elena said relieved as she hung up and then realized that Stefan was gone. “Where’d he go?” 

“To pick it up,” Anna said as though it should be obvious. 

“He’s the one least likely to be fried by the cranky old witch,” Damon pointed out, making everyone laugh, as much from relief as anything else. “Did you bring the rest of the device with you?” Damon asked Elena who shook her head. 

“I’ll go get it,” Anna offered. 

“It’s hidden behind Call of the Wild in the library,” Damon told her. “Left wall, right side of the middle shelf.” Anna nodded and sped out. 

She was back about the same time Stefan was and Elena texted back to the number that sent her the picture that they were ready to make the trade. Jenna insisted on going with which meant that Ric did too. They managed to talk Anna into staying behind though. Since she wasn’t noticed at the grill she was their secret weapon. She only agreed when they swore that they would save Jeremy, no matter the cost. 

As they were heading out for the meet as the sun was setting, Damon asked nervously, “And you’re sure it’s de-spelled?”

“Bonnie told me she checked it herself. There’s not a drop of magic left in it,” Stefan assured him. 

“I wouldn’t put it past the witch to put some sort of masking on it to fool Bonnie though,” Damon muttered. 

“We don’t have a choice but to trust her,” Elena said pressed tightly to Damon’s side, partially due to having five people in the car and partially for the comfort. “So your pessimism isn’t helping.”

Damon sighed but nodded. He just couldn’t help it. Everything always went wrong. “Okay. I’ll shut up.” 

“Thank you,” Jenna said gratefully. 

Elena had the device in her pocket as she stepped forward to meet Isobel, Damon and Stefan flanking the two humans behind her. “Where’s Jeremy?” Elena asked. 

“Nearby. I’ll tell you where when you hand over the device,” Isobel said coldly. 

“We get Jeremy first. That’s the deal,” Damon snapped. 

“No. The deal was the device for Jeremy. If you want to keep arguing, that’s fine. By my estimation he has about ten minutes before he bleeds out,” she said with a smirk. “Just in case you tried to double cross me. You understand.” 

Elena pulled the device out of her pocket and almost threw it at her. “Here. Now where’s my brother.” Isobel handed her a piece of paper and was gone before anyone could move. 

“Is that the address or do we need to go after her?” Damon asked, ready to run. 

Elena opened the paper and took off towards the municipal building to their right, followed quickly by everyone else. Once they realized where she was going, Damon and Stefan beat her to the door, but the delay it took them to open it allowed the humans to catch up. Jenna froze in the doorway at the sight of Jeremy laying in a pool of blood while everyone else continued rushing towards him. 

Damon leaned over Jeremy and after a quick check of his rapidly slowing pulse, he bared his fangs, ripped into his wrist and put it over Jeremy’s mouth. “Come on. Drink,” he said desperately. Stefan reached over and massaged his throat until he swallowed and they all sat back with relief when Jeremy sat straight up, gasping for breath. “He’s not…” Jenna trailed off, unable to even say it, but knowing that they would know what she meant. 

“No. He’s fine. The blood just healed him,” Stefan told her. 

“If he ends up dying in the next couple days he will be though,” Damon pointed out before looking at Jeremy sternly. “And if you intentionally make me responsible for turning you, I’ll make your eternity a living hell. Got it?” 

Jeremy huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I got it.” He did want to turn at some point, but he’d made a promise to Elena anyway so he wasn’t in any rush. It wasn’t like Anna would refuse when he was ready and he’d really rather not be on Damon’s bad side.

Jenna crushed Jeremy in a hug as Elena asked, “How did she get you?” 

“Uncle John,” Jeremy said angrily. “He came to my room and woke me up. He said that you were in trouble and he needed my help to save you, so I followed him out and the next thing I knew I was waking up tied to a chair with him and Isobel standing over me.”

“You idiot,” Damon smacked him in the head. “If Elena’s in trouble, you call me. Or even Stefan. You don’t go running off yourself like a moron.” 

“Yeah. I know,” Jeremy sighed. “I was half asleep and wasn’t even thinking.” 

“I’m gonna kill John,” Jenna growled. 

“I’ll help you,” Ric promised, and everyone else agreed with them. 

“Shall I deliver him trussed up so everyone can get a turn?” Damon asked hopefully. When everyone glared at him, he shrugged. “Or not.” 

“As much as I might wish we could, we can’t /actually/ kill him,” Ric pointed out. 

“He’s right. John is a member of the founder’s council. If he’s killed by a vampire they’ll be on the warpath and if he’s killed by a human the sheriff will stop at nothing to find the killer,” Stefan pointed out. 

“Then we report him. He assisted in the kidnapping of Jeremy,” Jenna said firmly. 

“That’s not the best idea either,” Damon said nervously. 

“Why not?” Jenna asked. 

“Because he knows about me and Stefan and even Anna. All he has to do is spill that when they come to get him and we’re all dead,” Damon told her. 

“We can’t just do nothing!” Jenna protested. 

“Oh, we won’t,” Ric promised. “He may have blackmail on us, but we have some on him now too. We can at least use it to keep him away from you guys with the threat of Damon paying him a visit if he doesn’t.” 

“I don’t mind being the bad guy if it’s necessary to protect the people I care about,” Damon said when Jenna looked at him hopefully. “And if it comes to it…if it’s him or any of you…I /will/ kill him. Consequences be damned.” 

As nervous as his casual attitude about killing people made her, Jenna couldn’t exactly argue with him this time. John had nearly gotten Jeremy killed. If it came down to him or them, she would even be willing to help Damon.


	34. Chapter 34

When they got home, John was waiting for them. Jenna was the first to notice him when she went into the kitchen. “You son of a bitch!” she yelled slapping him across the face. 

“Is Jeremy okay?” John asked worriedly, rubbing his face. 

Damon was quick on the scene, speeding behind John and wrapping his arms around his neck. “Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t snap your neck right here,” he growled. 

“You can’t kill me. The ring…”

“Ah yes. The ring,” Damon smirked shoving him against the counter and using his body to pin him there while one hand stretched out his arm and the other grabbed a butcher knife. “See, removing the hand, removes the ring. Now…I asked for a reason.” 

When Jenna looked like she was about to intervene, Elena waved her off. She knew that Damon wouldn’t do it. Not with all of them there watching anyway. He was just trying to scare him. Ric and Jeremy just didn’t care. “I didn’t know she was going to hurt him!” John said desperately. “She said she just wanted to hold onto him for insurance. She promised not to hurt him.”

“And you believed her?” Damon scoffed. When he didn’t answer, Damon raised the knife. “Well if you’re done answering questions…”

“Because I loved her once!” John cried. “I thought I could trust her!” 

Damon dropped the knife and shoved him against the wall by his throat. “Well that just makes you an imbecile then, doesn’t it.” He turned to the audience. “Anyone else have any questions for this piece of filth before I handle him?” He got four head shakes. “Okay, here’s the deal Johnny boy…while I wouldn’t mind killing you in the slightest, it would be rather inconvenient for me to clean up. So you have one chance and one chance only to live. Understand?”

“What do you want?” John croaked, knowing that he’d really screwed up this time. Pissing off a vampire was never a good thing. Pissing off Damon Salvatore was worse than most. He was a loose cannon in the best of times. 

“First, you are going to give Jeremy that ring. It belongs to him and you know it. Then, you will stay far away from everyone in this house. You will not call, write, text, come by…if you happen to be somewhere and they show up, you will leave. Do we have a deal?” Damon asked coldly. John nodded frantically. He didn’t have much of a choice. Once Damon let him go, he took of the ring, practically threw it at Jeremy and disappeared out the back door. Once he was gone, Damon grinned. “And /that’s/ how you handle things.”

“What did you mean, this belongs to me and why is it so important?” Jeremy asked looking at the ring curiously. 

“It was your father’s and it should have been passed down to you when he died, but your uncle took it first. It protects you from death by any supernatural being. Like today, if you had been wearing that ring and died, you would have come back because it was a vampire that killed you.”

“But she stabbed me with a normal human knife,” Jeremy pointed out. 

“It doesn’t matter. A vampire was the one to wield it, so you would come back. If you were shot by a vampire, you would come back,” Ric told him. “I have one of those rings too, and it came in handy when Damon killed me,” he finished with a smirk at the vampire in question. 

“Damon!” Elena scolded. 

“Hey! He came at me with a stake and tried to kill me! I was just defending myself!” Damon protested. 

“Ric!” it was Jenna’s turn to scold. 

“I thought he killed my wife,” Ric shrugged. “And then publicly taunted me about it.” 

“Men!” both Elena and Jenna said exasperatedly. Since no harm was done they saw no need to harp on the matter. At least they were friends now. Jeremy just shook his head and went upstairs to call Anna and let her know he was okay. 

Since no one was committing murder today, Stefan headed home while Damon followed Elena, Jenna, and Ric back into the living room. “So. Now that everything is settled, there’s something I wanted to ask you Damon,” Ric said conversationally. 

“What’s that?” Damon asked lazily, pulling Elena into his lap in the chair while Jenna and Ric sat on the couch. 

“We’re covering the civil war this week…”

“No,” Damon said simply. 

“And it would be a treat for the kids to have an actual soldier…”

“No,” Damon said again. 

“Not that they would know that of course. You could have an ancestor’s uniform and journals that you got the information from.”

“No, no, no, and um…no.” 

“Oh come on, Damon,” Elena pleaded. “I would love to see you in your old uniform again.”

“I don’t know…” Damon said hesitantly. 

Elena leaned over and whispered in his ear, “And I would really love to rip it off you afterwards.” 

Damon sighed heavily. “Fine.” 

“Great. Be there Tuesday at eight am,” Ric said with a smirk, having a pretty good idea what Elena whispered to him. “There are five classes that will be studying the civil war.” Really there were only two that were scheduled for it at the moment, but he would detour a bit for the rest. He wasn’t likely to get something like this again, even with Elena’s help. 

“Five?” Damon whined. 

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Elena whispered. “I promise.”

“You better,” Damon muttered. 

Damon stayed long enough for dinner and they were joined by Anna too, who had arrived not long after Jeremy called her. After dinner, Elena went home with Damon to stay the night, and the next few nights. She wanted a head start on making good on her promise and when he asked for help, first finding his old uniform in storage and then figuring out what the hell to actually say, she couldn’t exactly say no since she’d roped him into it in the first place.

When Tuesday morning rolled around, Damon drove her to school, with his uniform in a bag. No way was he walking around in it before he had to. He already felt like an idiot doing this in the first place, but he couldn’t say no to Elena when she turned those doe eyes on him. Ric let him use the storage room in his classroom to change, and Damon waited there until he was introduced to the first class. At least he had one class to work out the kinks before Elena’s class. 

Damon didn’t realize until he stepped out that no one had told Stefan what they were doing when Stefan gaped at him for a second and then nearly fell out of his desk laughing. “Something funny Mr. Salvatore?” Ric asked, look on his face clearly saying that yes. Something was very funny. 

“No. Sorry,” Stefan said biting his lip as he straightened up and faced forward. 

Damon glared at him for a minute before Ric cleared his throat, and Damon huffed and started his speech. “My name is Damon Salvatore. I was born in eighteen thirty nine to Guiseppe and Lilian Salvatore. My younger brother Stefan and I grew up right here in Mystic Falls where I lived until I joined the confederate army in eighteen sixty one…” He continued on to talk about the battles he’d been in and claimed to have died in The Battle of Willow Creek which was the only actual lie he told, and didn’t mention his desertion at all. 

Then came the questions, including one from Stefan meant partially to pull focus from the fact that he was actually telling the truth rather than playing a role, not that anyone who didn’t already know actually suspected as much, but it was mostly to tease his brother. “How did you manage to fit in our ancestor’s old uniform?” Damon didn’t dignify that with a response. There were plenty of serious questions, and the students easily got into the role play spirit, asking the questions like he was actually there, which most of them didn’t realize he was. Bonnie asked a few serious questions too, being one of the three people in the class that knew the truth, and she loved the chance to ask someone who was actually there. Elena, however, did not ask any questions. She was just too enamored with seeing Damon like that to be able to form words at the moment. 

Elena had managed to talk him into being the old Damon for the day too. The person he was when he actually wore this uniform for real. Manners, speech patterns and all, which led to a short lesson on etiquette of the eighteen sixties. Ric was inwardly patting himself on the back for taking Elena’s idea. He wouldn’t have thought to include half the things that Damon was talking about regarding life in general in that time period, but it really helped to make it more real for the kids. So much so that they actually groaned when the bell rang. 

As everyone filed out, Stefan with one last laugh at his brother, Elena went up to Damon who relaxed with a heavy breath and leaned on the front of the desk. She wrapped her arms around him and played with the hair at the nape of his neck sticking out from under the cap as his arms circled her waist. Bonnie held back too, long enough to ask, “How much of that was the truth?” 

“Every word, except my death,” Damon said with a chuckle. 

“Thanks for doing this,” she told him. “It was fun.” With that she left them alone, suspecting that she wasn’t going to see Elena for lunch. 

When Elena pulled Damon into a searing kiss, Ric rolled his eyes. “I’m going to the teacher’s lounge for lunch and I don’t want to know about anything you do while I’m gone. Just know my desk is off limits,” he said as he walked out. 

Elena wasn’t going to do anything in the classroom anyway. Not with the big window in the door and anyone being able to walk in. Instead she dragged Damon back towards the storage room. She didn’t end up ripping the uniform off. Not this time anyway. Not completely. She shoved him against the wall and pulled the overshirt open, sliding her hands underneath the undershirt as she kissed him like her life depended on it. He certainly wasn’t complaining as his hands slid underneath her skirt, pulling her tighter against him and she moaned into the kiss before moving her lips down his jaw to his neck. 

When Elena started undoing the front of his pants, Damon sucked in a sharp breath as it dawned on him that she was probably wearing a skirt today for a reason. It wasn’t something she did often, after all. He quickly spun her around so that her back was against the wall and her leg immediately wrapped around his waist. He slid his hand under her skirt and up her thigh as his now bare cock rubbed against her panties with every pull of his hips, his lips attacking Elena’s neck and sliding her shirt off her shoulders one by one so that he could get access to that skin as well. 

Elena pushed him away just enough to put her leg down long enough to slide her panties down and step out of them. Damon let out a low moan as he moved back into position, lifting her skirt again and gripping her thigh tightly. It was all Elena could do not to cry out in pleasure as he thrust up into her. The lunch break was only half an hour so they didn’t have long enough to drag it out, but that didn’t mean they didn’t make the most of the time they had. 

As it always did when they were together, their passion overwhelmed them, but they managed to stay quiet enough not to tell the whole school what they were doing. Barely. Damon kept a faster pace from the start than usual, but still managed to drive them both to the brink, holding them there as long as he could manage before Elena broke first, biting her lip so hard it bled not to scream out as her orgasm slammed into her with an intensity that never failed to knock her for a loop. If not for Damon holding her up, she wouldn’t have been able to stay on her feet. Her clenching around him was enough to drag Damon over the edge with her, and when he kissed her and tasted the blood from her lip, that just prolonged his orgasm as he let out a choked moan, barely managing to keep himself upright as well. 

They were still coming down from their high when they heard the bell ring, and they both whimpered as Damon moved away and Elena went to work straightening her clothes. Damon tucked himself back in his pants quickly, doing them back up before turning his attention to his top as Elena slipped out the door, still fixing her hair after one more quick kiss. She didn’t quite make it out of the classroom before the next class started filing in and barely made it to her next class in time before the next bell rang. Damon had a little more time to get himself together, since he had to wait a couple minutes after the start of class to come out anyway. 

Elena was still trying to catch her breath as she slid into her seat and Bonnie laughed, handing her a slice of pizza a cookie she’d swiped from the cafeteria. “Good lunch break?” 

“Very,” Elena said breathlessly, blushing brightly. 

“I don’t blame you,” Caroline told her with a grin. “Damon was hot hot hot in that uniform.” 

“Better not let Matt hear you say that,” Bonnie teased. 

“I won’t,” Caroline chuckled. “So how was it? Do you do it on the desk?” 

“No,” Elena grinned. “Against the wall in the storage room.” 

“Ooh. Even better,” Bonnie said with a waggle of her eyebrows. 

“Something you girls would like to share with the class?” the teacher asked, interrupting them.

“No ma’am,” they all said in unison giggling. Even Stefan couldn’t help but snort amusedly from the other side of the room, obviously able to hear every word they were saying. 

After school, Elena made Damon leave the uniform on during the ride home, saying that she still hadn’t lived up to her end of the bargain to rip it off. When they got home, they immediately went to the bedroom and she made good on her promise and then some as they didn’t come up for air until dinnertime, after which it was right back upstairs for a long bath followed by more fun until they fell asleep. Damon considered asking Ric if he needed any more civil war demonstrations in the future.


	35. Chapter 35

When word got around about Damon’s uniform, the founder’s council suggested that he wear it instead of the usual period tux for the parade. He was a little surprised that he was expected to escort Elena for the founder’s court since Stefan was her official escort for the pageant, but he supposed that everyone knew that they had broke up and he was with Elena now and since he had stepped in when Stefan bailed, there was precedent. It wasn’t like he would pass up spending the day with Elena anyway, even if it would be stuffy and formal. Thankfully, there were no hard feelings. Stefan was glad to give it a miss.

Elena was very aware of the potential disaster this could be, so when choosing her own costume, she tried to get as far away from Katherine’s usual style as possible and still stay in period. Instead of just curling her hair like she normally would have, she got Caroline to help her with an elaborate up-do that was far beyond anything Katherine would bother with. She even went light on the makeup, using more natural tones, unlike Katherine’s more flashy style. She knew that her efforts were appreciated when Damon let out a relieved breath at her entrance and whispered a quiet “thank you” in her ear as he offered her his arm. 

“You’re welcome,” she whispered back as they made their way to the float and took their places. The parade was just as boring as he’d expected and only Elena’s presence made it bearable, but it didn’t last too long and they both went to change. Despite the effort she’d taken to look as little like Katherine as possible, he was still much more comfortable with her once she was in normal clothes again. 

The rest of the day went well and they had a lot of fun, none of them noticing John’s failed attempts to use the Gilbert device or the deputies that were watching closely only for nothing to happen. Unfortunately for John, that just made everyone believe that the town was clean of vampires and no one would take his warnings to heart. The mayor even chastised him for raising a panic when there was nothing there and released the sheriff with apologies. Needless to say he left town the next day with his tail between his legs and wondered how on earth the Salvatores had beaten the device. If only he dared to ask. He didn’t doubt that Damon would carry out his threat if he dared approach them again and since getting him out of the way had failed so spectacularly, he had no choice. 

Since Elena was going to be sleeping at home that night, she had her own car with her, and she said goodbye to Damon there. He planned to hit the bar and continue the party, but she was exhausted. When she walked in the door, Jenna was coming out of the kitchen. “Elena? But I thought you…Oh…crap,” Jenna realized what was happening as her eyes widened. 

“What do you…” Elena started and stopped when Jenna’s finger went to her lips and she pointed up and then back to her and the back up. It took Elena a second before her eyes widened to and she mouthed the word, ‘go’ to Jenna. Jenna tried to motion her to come along but Elena shook her head. ‘Call Damon,’ she mouthed. She knew if they all left and Katherine didn’t get to play whatever game she was here for, it could end up being a bloodbath when she lost her temper. She was almost certain that Katherine wouldn’t kill her at least. 

Jenna clearly didn’t like it, but left. If Elena refused to leave, someone had to get help and she couldn’t exactly call Damon when there was a vampire in the house that could hear every word she said. She hadn’t realized when Elena said that they looked alike that she meant /exactly/ alike. When Damon didn’t answer his phone, she tried Stefan who also didn’t answer since he was at the bar with his brother and there was enough white noise around to drown out the background noises like their phones. When Jenna couldn’t get either of them she drove back towards the celebration to find them in person. She just prayed she wouldn’t be too late. The only thing keeping her calm was the fact that Elena wasn’t suicidal and she knew Katherine better than any of them. 

Once Jenna was gone, Elena headed upstairs, glad that Jeremy was still with Anna at the celebration. She stepped into her room to find Katherine rummaging through the closet before she turned around. “Well if it isn’t my little doppelganger,” she said with a smirk. 

“Your what?” 

“Oh, you don’t know? Mores the pity,” she chuckled as she continued moving around the room. “It really is like looking in a mirror,” she quipped, picking up the teddy bear from the bed. “But with far less taste. What even is this?” she asked distastefully before tossing the bear back on the bed. 

“What don’t I know?” Elena asked, forcing herself to keep cool. The less she rose to Katherine’s taunts the more she would try to get attention and the more information she would spill. 

“Tsk tsk. If only you knew what was coming for you,” Katherine laughed. “But don’t worry. I won’t spill the beans…yet. I still have a few more things to get first.”

“Spill the beans on what to who?” 

“Why, that there’s a new doppelganger, of course,” Katherine said gleefully. “Klaus will be so glad. He might even remove the price on my head.”

“And what would this Klaus want with a doppelganger?” Elena asked calmly. 

“To kill you of course,” Katherine said, getting a little irritated that Elena wasn’t freaking out, so she tried a little harder. “But not until the right time obviously. You can’t die before the sacrifice ritual.” 

“Is that so?” Elena chuckled. 

“You can’t escape it you know,” Katherine told her walking over and circling her, trying to make her nervous. “And if you try, he’ll kill everyone you’ve ever known. Everyone you’ve ever loved. Especially your little boyfriends.”

“You don’t get to talk about them,” Elena said, starting to lose a bit of her cool. 

“Why not? I mean, they do seem to have a type don’t they?” Katherine noticed that she was getting to her. 

“I guess they just traded up,” Elena smirked. 

“More like found a replacement,” Katherine laughed. “You know that’s all you’ll ever be to either of them, right? Just a pretend version of me.” 

“If you think that then you never knew them at all.”

“Oh I know them better than you think. I’m surprised you gave up Stefan for Damon though. How can you stand so much of him? All clingy and touchy all the time. Ugh,” she shuddered.

“Damon is perfect just the way he is, and he deserved better than what you did to him. So did Stefan,” Elena snapped. 

“I assure you, they loved every bit of what I did to them,” Katherine said smugly, plopping onto Elena’s bed and putting her feet up. 

“Only because they didn’t see the real you,” Elena said heatedly. 

“And you think you know the real me?” Katherine laughed derisively. 

“It takes a special kind of bitch to force Emily to tell Damon you were in that tomb just so he would spend a century and a half pining for you and trying to save you,” Elena snarled. 

“How did you…”

“Because I was there,” Elena snapped. “I was in Emily’s mind the whole time you were playing your little games. I know everything she knew.” 

Katherine’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “And she kept that from me…how dare she…” 

Katherine sped out without another word and it wasn’t until she was gone that Elena realized what she’d done. “Oh god…Bonnie…” 

Damon and Stefan both rushed in as she plopped down on the bed in tears. “Where is she? What happened?” Stefan asked first. 

“Bonnie,” Elena said worriedly. “Damon, get to Bonnie.”

“But…”

“Damnit Damon, now! Before Katherine does!” Elena yelled. “Both of you. Go!”

They only went because if Katherine was after Bonnie that meant that Elena would be fine for now and they really wanted to get Katherine so she would stay that way. Since Katherine was obviously invited in, she had to die. Since they didn’t know where she was, they split up. Stefan headed back to the celebration while Damon sped to the Bennett house. He got there just as a pissed off Sheila Bennett put Katherine on the ground holding her head. 

Damon didn’t want to distract her so he called to Bonnie behind her. “Bon, toss me something wood.” The trees were far enough away to make him uncomfortable heading there. 

Bonnie looked around for a second before grabbing a chair and smashing it against a wall. She grabbed one of the legs that looked pointy enough and tossed it out over her grandmother’s head. Damon caught it expertly and drove it into Katherine’s heart in the same fluid motion. Bonnie caught Sheila as she started to slump and helped her to an intact chair. “You okay?” Damon called into the house, unable to step in and knowing that he wasn’t going to get in invitation. 

Bonnie rushed out the door a minute later and grabbed Damon in a hug. “Thank you,” she said gratefully. “Grams couldn’t have held her much longer.”

“You’re welcome,” Damon said hugging her back. “I’m just glad I made it in time. Once Elena figured out she was coming after you, I was only about five minutes behind her, but she’s a lot faster than me.” 

“I need to go take care of Grams, but thank you again,” she said, finally letting him go. 

“Anytime, Bon. I am the Bennett guardian angel after all,” he joked, giving her a wink before picking up Katherine’s body and dumping it in his trunk. He had to go check on Elena before dealing with the body.


	36. Chapter 36

On the way back, he texted both Stefan and Jenna to let them know it was handled. When he got back up to Elena’s room, he found her sitting on her bed, hugging her knees and crying. “Bonnie?” she looked up and asked when he walked in. 

“She’s okay,” Damon said gently, moving over to the bed and pulling Elena into his arms. “I got there in time. Katherine’s dead.” 

“Thank you,” Elena said, leaning into him for comfort. 

“Now…are you okay? What did she do to you?” Damon asked worriedly. Hearing that Bonnie was okay hadn’t calmed her. 

“What do you know about doppelgangers?” Elena asked with a sniffle. 

“Nothing really. Why?” Damon asked. 

“Because that’s what I am,” Elena told him. “Katherine told me…”

“Katherine is a liar, Elena. Don’t believe a word she says,” he said comfortingly, kissing her head. 

“I know her, Damon. Better than anyone. I know when she’s lying,” Elena said firmly. 

Damon sighed. He couldn’t dispute that. “Okay…so what is a doppelganger?” 

“I should have figured it out before,” Elena said, kicking herself for it. “It’s so obvious.”

“Come on, baby. Tell me something here,” Damon coaxed. 

“Okay. You know the story of Klaus and the original vampires, right?” she asked, having heard the stories from Emily. 

“Bedtime stories,” Damon scoffed. 

“Truth,” Elena told him. “Katherine never told Emily much about the details, but we were able to piece together a little bit. Klaus wanted her badly for something. So much so that he chased her to the ends of the earth and slaughtered her entire village when she eluded him, her family getting the most drawn out and gruesome deaths.”

“What does that have to do with you?” Damon asked worriedly. 

“Because Katherine just told me that he wanted her because she was a doppelganger and now he’ll be after me. If I try to run, he’ll kill everyone and if I don’t, I’ll be sacrificed for some ritual of his.”

Damon felt his blood turn to ice at the thought. He knew that she would never accept running. He would sacrifice everything and everyone if it saved her, but she would never accept that. “Does he know…” 

“She said she hadn’t told him yet. That she still needed a few other things first,” Elena said. 

“Okay. Then we have a minute to figure this out,” Damon said relieved. 

“There’s nothing to figure out, Damon. I can’t let everyone die for me,” she cried, turning her face to his chest. 

“And I can’t let you die for anything,” he said softly, holding her tightly and rubbing her back. “We’ll figure something out,” he promised. 

“Like what?” Elena asked. “There is no third option.” 

Damon heard movement downstairs and then Stefan and Jenna’s voices, so he ignored it for now. “There’s always a third option,” Damon told her. “We just have to find it.” 

“Third option for what?” Stefan asked as he came in, followed by Jenna and Jeremy who had come back with them at the news that Katherine had been here. Anna had gone as fast as she could in the opposite direction at the news. She wanted to stay as far away from Katherine as possible. 

“Right, you guys might want to sit down,” Damon said with a sigh. 

Stefan took the chair, Jeremy sat on the desk and Jenna eased onto the bed on Elena’s other side, rubbing her back soothingly. “What’s wrong?” 

“We learned that there is a powerful vampire…one who has an entire army behind him…after Elena because, apparently, she’s a doppelganger and needs to be sacrificed for a ritual.” 

“But…we can stop it right?” Jeremy asked hopefully. 

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. The last time he found a doppelganger and she ran, he slaughtered her entire village and tortured her family.” 

“Oh god,” Jenna gasped, covering her mouth. 

“That could have been done a little more delicately, brother,” Stefan said disapprovingly. 

“We don’t have time for delicate Stefan. With as many vampires as come through this town, she could be figured out any second. It’s pure luck that the only two vampires to recognize her were too dumb to know what it meant,” Damon snapped. 

“We didn’t know either,” Stefan pointed out. 

“I know,” Damon sighed. “We were idiots. We should have dug deeper.” 

“She has to die,” Jenna breathed out in horror. 

“Really?” Damon asked disgustedly. “You’re just gonna throw her under the bus like that to save yourselves?” 

“No, Damon. Of course not,” Jenna snapped. “How could you even think that?” 

“Then what else could you have meant?” Damon asked irritated. 

“If this vampire thinks she’s dead…we get no vengeance and she gets to live, right?” 

“Fake her death,” Stefan said thoughtfully. 

“It worked for Katherine,” Damon realized. “But she would have to leave here and never come back.”

“I’ll do it,” Elena said sadly. “If it saves everyone I love, I’ll do it.” 

Jenna burst into tears at that and even Jeremy had a few tears leak from his eyes. Jenna took Damon’s hand and looked into his eyes. “Take care of her. Please.” 

Damon squeezed her hand and said solemnly, “I will. Always.” 

“Will we be able to keep in touch at all?” Jeremy asked hopefully with a sniffle. 

“I’m sure we can arrange that. Emails, phone calls even.”

“Won’t they recognize her voice if anyone is listening in on the call?” Stefan asked worriedly. 

“Not likely,” Damon snorted. “Her voice is nothing like Katherine’s.” 

“What do you mean?” Elena asked. “We’re identical. She sounded like me to me.”

“No,” Damon shook his head. “Your voice is filled with a warmth, a kindness, that she could never manage to reproduce no matter how hard she tried. You sound nothing like her.” 

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” Stefan said. “But I agree that there’s enough of a difference to throw anyone off.”

“We would need fake names at least though,” Elena pointed out. 

“We can figure that part out later. Right now we need to figure out how we’re going to pull this off,” Damon said. 

“And how to stop Katherine from blowing it,” Stefan pointed out. 

“I told you Katherine was handled,” Damon rolled his eyes. 

“That doesn’t mean she’ll /stay/ handled,” Stefan replied.

“Well unless she manages to come back from the dead…”

“Wait…by handled you meant dead?” Stefan asked in shock. He couldn’t believe that his brother went that far. Not with Katherine. “You killed her?” 

“Are you complaining?” Damon asked incredulously. 

“No, of course not. Just…wasn’t expecting that.” 

Jenna was just as surprised. She had still been worried about him seeing Elena as a replacement somehow, but if he was so willing to kill Katherine for her, then that wasn’t possible. She had cheered up a little bit at the thought that they could stay in contact at least so she was better able to participate in the conversation. “Well…correct me if I’m wrong, but since Katherine looks exactly like Elena…it should be easy to fake her death. Just pass Katherine off as her.” 

“Vampires die in a very unique way,” Damon told her. “Anyone in the know who looks at the body will know it’s a vampire.” 

“Then say Elena got turned and you had to kill her. The council won’t fault you for that, and even less for leaving town after that kind of trauma.” 

“I don’t want her to be remembered as a vampire,” Damon snapped. 

“Just tell the sheriff then. Ask her to cover it up,” Jeremy suggested. “I’m sure she would. She likes Elena. Then no one else has to know.”

Damon considered that for a moment before nodding. “Okay. I can live with that. Elena?” he asked. “You’re being very quiet. How do you feel about this?” 

“It’s the only way,” she said sadly. “But are you sure you can act well enough to pull this off?” 

“I’ll manage,” he said with a slight smile before turning to everyone else. “Just one other thing. I’ll have to compel you two,” he told Jenna and Jeremy. 

“What? Why? I thought we could keep in contact?” Jeremy asked. 

“Please don’t make me believe she’s dead,” Jenna begged. 

“Okay. I won’t. But I at least need to compel you to never reveal that she’s not.” 

“You think we would? Knowing what would happen?” Jenna asked. 

“No. I don’t think you would intentionally. But if a vampire ever manages to separate you from your vervain…”

“A vampire can’t override another vampire’s compulsion,” Jenna realized with a nod. “Okay.” She took off her bracelet and looked into his eyes. 

He quickly compelled her and then Jeremy before they put their bracelets back on. “Stef, will you stay with her while I handle the sheriff?” 

“Of course,” Stefan nodded. 

When Damon got up, passing Elena to Jenna, Jeremy moved to take Damon’s spot on the bed, and then Elena was clinging to them both. “Go ahead and say your goodbyes. We’ll head out when I get back,” Damon told her, running a hand through her hair and kissing her head before he left.


	37. Chapter 37

Damon texted the sheriff to meet him at their usual spot in the woods for vampire stuff and headed that way. When he got there first, he took a few deep breaths to get into character for this. He couldn’t pull off tears very well, but shock and pain he could do. When she arrived he got out and went to meet her, able to bring tears to his eyes, but not really make them fall. He didn’t look at her and plastered a haunted look on his face. “Damon? What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly. Damon just opened his trunk without a word. “Oh my god…Elena?!” Damon closed it back with a nod. “How…”

“I don’t know,” Damon said hauntedly. “She tried to attack me. I didn’t want to…I couldn’t…” he choked himself up. 

Liz reached out and pulled him into a hug. “Hey, it’s okay. I know it’s hard, but you did the right thing,” she assured him. 

“I don’t want her to be remembered like this,” Damon said firmly not hugging her back. “I don’t want anyone else to know.” 

Liz nodded as she let him go and stepped back. “I’ll take care of it,” Liz promised. “I’ll get a death certificate written up as an animal attack. He won’t need to see the body. It’ll be a mess with Jenna, but I can pass off the immediate cremation as a paperwork mix-up. No will know that she was ever a vampire but the two of us. You have my word.” Damon nodded curtly. “I’ll take her from here,” Liz said gently, motioning to his trunk which he opened again, refusing to look at the body, as much as he secretly wanted to spit on and dance around it. 

“Liz…” Damon called as she wrapped the body and put it in the back of her truck. When she turned to look at him he said, “Thank you.”

She smiled sadly at him. “You’re welcome,” she said sincerely. “I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow?” 

Damon shook his head. “I’m leaving. I have to get out of this town for a while. Maybe forever. I just can’t…”

“I understand,” Liz said sympathetically. “We’ll miss you, Damon, but I understand.” She walked over and gave him another hug, this one he returned half-heartedly, glad that he got a chance to say goodbye to her at least. 

Damon got in his car and drove off, swinging by the boarding house to pack his stuff which took less than five minutes at vampire speed, including emptying the downstairs fridge full of bloodbags into a few coolers. Those went at the back of the trunk with his bags in front. He packed all of Elena’s clothes that were here too, knowing that too much missing from home would be suspicious so soon after her death. Thankfully, she had more than enough to get by still, even if they didn’t go shopping for more. 

That done, he was on his way back to the Gilbert house. He parked in the woods a bit away so there was no chance of Liz spotting his car there and getting suspicious. When he got there, he went in her window and when he didn’t see anyone there, he headed downstairs, grabbing her teddy bear and putting it in his jacket on the way. He found everyone sitting on the couch. “Hey. You ready?” he asked softly. 

Jenna got up and came over to give him a tight hug. “Thank you for everything, Damon. We’ll miss you too,” she told him. 

Damon hugged her back tightly and even pressed a kiss to her head, and she stepped back only to be replaced by Jeremy, and then Stefan, who gave him the most bone-crushing hug of all. “You’re staying then?” Damon asked, assuming that by the hug. 

“Yeah. For a while at least. I want to keep an eye on things here. I’ll hook back up with you later,” Stefan promised as he stepped back. 

Elena was giving one more hug to everyone before she grabbed a small bag and reached a hand towards Damon. He took the bag first before taking her hand. Once they were outside, he picked her up and sped back to the car with her. “I hate to say it, but you’re gonna have to lay down in the backseat until we get out of town.” 

“Yeah. I figured,” she huffed a laugh as she did just that and Damon got in front and drove off. When Elena realized how fast he was driving, she decided that laying down in the backseat was the best way to spend the rest of the trip. It was better than concurrent heart attacks for however long they were on the road. 

When he eventually stopped, Elena sat up as he got out and looked around confused. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. “You’ll want to get up front now,” Damon told her as he walked around for a minute like he was looking for something. 

“What are you doing?” she asked curiously. 

“You’ll see,” Damon told her with a smirk. She raised an eyebrow when he seemed to find what he was looking for, bent down to brush something off, and then bit his hand open and let the blood fall to the ground before coming back to the car and they both got in. “You’ll need to take my hand for this,” he told her reaching out and she put her hand in his. 

“What are we…oh…wow,” she stopped her question as they went down a short ramp and ended up in what looking like a garage. 

“Welcome to the Salvatore bunker,” Damon told her. “There was a Salvatore back in the fifties who had this place built as a bomb shelter. Where we are now is the original structure. I had it added on to,” Damon explained as they got out of the car. “Never know when you’re gonna need a place to lie low for a while. Let’s have the tour before we come back to get our stuff.”

“What was that thing you did with the blood and then holding my hand?” she asked curiously. 

“I found a witch to enchant this place. Only Salvatore blood can make it visible and only a Salvatore can allow anyone else access.”

“Nice,” Elena said as he led her through the door at the back of the garage and she found what looked like an entire house. It reminded her of a cross between the boarding house and the original Salvatore estate, but smaller than both. There was the living room, a kitchenette, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large library that was half the size of the rest of the place alone. “This is nice,” Elena said with a smile. 

“It doesn’t have a full kitchen because I didn’t see the need for one, but I know neither of us cooks much, so I’ll be going out for a lot of takeout,” Damon explained. 

“No, you won’t,” Elena told him. 

“You need to eat, Elena,” he chuckled. 

“Not once I’m turned I won’t.”

“What, now?” Damon asked incredulously. 

“Well not right this second, but soon, yeah,” Elena huffed a laugh. 

Damon sighed. “Let’s just get our stuff put up for now and then we can talk about it.” 

Elena sighed. “I was exhausted before all this crap started. Can we just worry about all that tomorrow?” 

Damon pulled her in for a kiss before leading her to the master bedroom. He used his vamp speed to get the bed made up. “Go ahead to bed, baby. I’ll take care of everything and join you soon,” he told her. Elena was too tired to argue as she climbed into bed and was asleep the second her head hit the pillow.

Damon pulled the teddy bear out of his jacket and placed it in her arms before going to unload the car. The first thing he did was move the blood from the coolers to the fridge, taking a break to have a bag for himself before he got everything else unpacked. When he opened her bag he found it full of notebooks and journals and smiled. Of course that’s what she brought. She probably knew that he would get her clothes from his room, so didn’t bother risking taking anything from home, but she wasn’t about to leave her journals behind. He took them to the library and lined the journals up on the top shelf of the roll top desk and put the rest of the notebooks in the side drawer. When he found a ring box at the bottom he shrugged and just set it on the desk for now. He would ask her about it tomorrow.

Putting the clothes away was relatively quick and then he sat down to make a shopping list. He added a little bit of food. Even if she wanted to turn tomorrow, it was still nice to eat every now and then. Coffee was a must for both of them, but they both took it black. He put down a computer and phone for her since she’d had to leave hers behind. Booze was a definite necessity. There were a few bottles here but that wouldn’t last long and it was all the whiskey he liked. They needed stuff for margaritas too. He was sure he was forgetting things, but he was too tired to think of anything else tonight. He could worry about the rest tomorrow. 

He stripped down to his underwear and climbed into bed next to Elena and she instinctively rolled to his side. He smiled and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. He would never have chosen this for her, but if it was the price to save her life then so be it. He knew that she would miss her family, but he would do whatever he could to keep them in contact. He would give her anything and everything he could manage and still keep her safe.


	38. Chapter 38

The next morning, she woke first, but she was too comfortable in his arms to move, so she just laid there trailing her fingers lightly over his chest, breathing him in. She’d decided during the drive to not see this as a real goodbye with her family. She could still keep in contact, so it would be no different than moving away. Her friends would be more difficult, but she chose to believe that they would have drifted apart after high school anyway. It made it easier. At least for now. And she could still get news of them. She was still turning that over in her head when she felt Damon’s thumb rubbing over her arm and she looked up to see him looking at her. “You doing okay?” he asked. 

“I’m okay,” she assured him. “As long as I have you I’ll be fine.”

He smiled and kissed her softly. “And you will /always/ have me,” he promised. “Can we talk a little more about last night?” 

“What about it?” Elena asked. 

“We got sidetracked by the whole doppelganger issue, but what else happened with you and Katherine?” 

“Nothing really. We talked. Well…argued more like,” she chuckled. 

“About what?” 

“Well I was trying to keep my cool with her and I managed until she brought up you and Stefan. I told her off for what she did to you. Let slip that I was in Emily and that’s when she got pissed and I realized that she was going after Emily’s descendants for revenge.” 

“Okay, see, I wasn’t quite sure before with all the emotional stuff going on at the time, but now I’m positive. You’re avoiding something there,” Damon accused, part amused and part worried. 

“What would I be avoiding?” she asked cryptically. 

Damon couldn’t help but laugh. She was just digging deeper and deeper. “You tell me.” 

Elena sighed heavily. “She said that I was nothing to you but a replacement for her.” 

Damon reached down and lifted her chin to look at him. “Please tell me you know that’s not true, Lena.”

“I do,” she told him, but it didn’t come off as confidently as she intended it. 

“No you don’t,” Damon realized. “You have doubts.” 

Elena sighed. “Not really…it’s just…you wanted to be turned so you could be with her forever, but…you don’t want to turn me. You don’t want me forever.” 

Damon propped up on his elbow, rolling her to her back as he looked down at her seriously. “I love you, Elena. And I will love you until I take my last breath on this earth. The only thing I want more than to have you forever is for you to be happy. If I knew for a fact that you would be happy as a vampire, I would do it without a moment’s hesitation.” 

Elena smiled and reach a hand to cup his cheek. “The only thing I need to be happy, Damon, is you. I’m telling you that I /will/ be happy as a vampire. Please just trust me on that.” 

Damon closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “Okay,” he agreed. 

“Thank you,” she said happily leaning up to kiss him. 

“Now what else are you avoiding from that conversation?” Damon asked her. 

“Why would you think I’m avoiding anything else?” she asked confused. 

“Because you admitted what you did way too easily, which means there’s worse,” Damon said pointedly. 

Elena looked away with pain-filled eyes. “It was nothing that hurt me, Damon, but it would hurt you, and I don’t want to do that.” 

“Please, Lena. I need to know,” Damon said gently. 

“Why?” 

“Because I need that closure. I need to be able to close the Katherine chapter of my life for good, and I can’t do that as long as I keep wondering about this.” 

Elena sighed heavily. It made sense. She would want to know too in his position. “She said that she didn’t know how I could stand being with you so much. That you were too clingy and touchy.” 

Damon grit his teeth against the hurt that washed over him before he centered himself and asked, “Do /you/ think that?” 

“No, of course not,” she assured him. “You’re not clingy at all and as far as touchy…that’s one of the things I love the most about you. How you never hesitate to show your affection. It makes me feel loved and wanted.”

“You /are/ loved and wanted,” Damon smiled, brushing a hand down her cheek. 

“And you never give me a chance to doubt it, and I love that. And it makes me feel free to do the same,” she told him. 

“Then I don’t give a crap what Katherine thinks. As long as you love me the way I am, that’s all I care about,” Damon told her as he leaned down for a lingering kiss. 

“Good,” she grinned. “Now…can we talk about turning me?” 

“If you’re absolutely, a hundred percent sure of what you want…”

“I am,” she told him. 

“Okay. Then I’ll do it,” he breathed out, desperately hoping that this wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake. 

“Now?” she asked hopefully. 

“If that’s what you want,” he agreed. When she nodded, he bit his wrist open and she shifted so that she was in front of him. He pulled them up to partially sitting, leaning back against the headboard as she pulled his wrist to her lips sucking greedily. He let out a low moan as his body reacted and when she stopped, he was breathing heavily. He pulled himself back under control and asked, “You ready?” as he wrapped his arms around her neck ready to break it. 

“Can we do it a different way than a broken neck?” she asked hopefully. 

“That’s the quickest and most painless way,” he told her. 

“I know. But I would rather something else,” she said, a little nervous to ask for it though. She wasn’t sure how he would feel about it. 

“What would you rather?” he asked curiously. 

“I want you to feed on me. All the way,” she told him. “That won’t mess up the vampire blood part will it?” 

Damon shook his head. “No, the vampire blood is in your stomach, not your blood, but…are you sure?”

“Positive,” she told him as she reached over and pulled her hair to the side baring her neck.

“Why?” he had to know. 

“It’s stupid,” she blushed and looked down. 

“I doubt that,” he chuckled.

“It’s just…I want the last of my humanity to be a part of you,” she told him embarrassedly. “See? Stupid?” 

Damon touched her cheek and turned her for a long loving kiss. “It’s not stupid, baby. Not at all.” He was more touched than he could put into words by that sentiment. Damon’s breathing quickened in anticipation and he pressed a line of soft kisses down her neck before he bared his fangs and bit down gently, feeling her tense a bit at the initial bite before she relaxed. Her hand came up and ran through his hair and she whispered, “I love you, Damon,” just before her hand fell and she lost consciousness. Seconds before she died. 

Damon kissed and licked over her neck, making sure she was completely clean as he closed his eyes against the wash of emotion. He had no idea what he was feeling right now. There was so much that he couldn’t pinpoint any one thing. He had never turned anyone he cared about before. The act of killing her, temporary or not, was tearing him up. But at the same time, the love and trust she’d placed in him warmed his heart. She’d used her last words as a human to tell him that she loved him. And the way she wanted to do it and why…

He sat there with her cooling body in his arms, just waiting for her to wake up. It seemed like forever, but in reality was only a few hours before she tensed up and gasped for air. “Shh. It’s okay baby. I’m here. Everything’s fine. I’ve got you.” She let out a heavy breath and turned towards him, pulling his arms tighter around her as the enhanced emotions washed over her. “You okay?” he asked worriedly when she didn’t say anything. 

“I’m perfect,” she breathed out. “Just…a little overwhelmed at how much I love you.” 

Damon’s face twitched into a smile. “It can be a little overwhelming at first. The intensity of the emotion.” He gave it a minute before asking, “You ready for some blood?” 

“I’m so thirsty I feel like I could die, but I can’t bear to let you go right now either.” 

Damon grinned. “How about this then?” he suggested, sliding an arm under her legs and getting up to carry her towards the fridge. 

She laughed and threw her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder. “Such a smart man.” 

She reached out and opened the fridge, grabbing blood bag. “Get three,” he told her.

“Why three?” she asked as she grabbed them. 

“You’re going to be more thirsty than usual at first and one is for me.” He stole a kiss as he turned to carry her back to bed, sitting her across his lap as he showed her the best way to open it without making a mess. After the first sip, she gasped in pain for a moment before relaxing and then finishing the entire bag, and then the second, just as he finished his one.


End file.
